The unemployment rate last month rose to its highest level since August last year, as employers offered fewer job openings and more college graduates entered the labor market butfailed to get an offer, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The unemployment rate — a lagging indicator of economic performance — climbed for the third consecutive month to 4.31 percent last month, from 4.21 percent in June, the agency said in its monthly report.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which he said was a more reliable indicator of the long-term trend, was up 0.01 percentage points from the previous month to 4.25 percent last month, the report said.
“More school-leavers entered the job market last month, further pushing up the number of first-time jobseekers failing to find a job,” DGBAS deputy director Chen Min (陳憫) told a press conference.
The latest data showed that 490,000 people were unemployed last month, an increase of 13,000 from the previous month, with the number of first-time jobseekers failing to get a job rising by 11,000.
The increase was also reflected in the growing youth unemployment rate, with joblessness among 15-to-24-year-olds rising to 12.96 percent last month, up from 12.36 percent in June and 12.91 percent during the same period last year, the report showed.
Chen said the jobless rate may continue to show a rising trend this month on the same seasonal effect, which may boost the number of first-time jobseekers failing to get a job.
Weak sentiment about the economy would be the other major factor dragging down local employers’ hiring demand and further affecting the labor market in the near future, DGBAS said.
The number of employed people was 10.88 million last month, up 1.21 percent from a year earlier, marking the lowest comparative month-on-month rise in the past two years, which indicated the conservative attitude of employers generating new positions, the agency said.
Henry Ho (何啟聖), a public relations director at 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行), also said the continuous downturn trend in the nation’s export orders indicated employers may decrease the number of job openings, further affecting the labor market.
DGBAS also unveiled the latest salary data yesterday, which showed that national monthly salaries averaged NT$37,276 (US$1,240) in the first half of this year, up 1.88 percent from a year ago.
However, when bonuses and other forms of compensation are included, the average monthly remuneration package showed a 0.24 percent markdown from a year earlier to stand at NT$48,829 in the first six months.
This reflected employers awarding lower year-end bonuses and other vocational rewards this year because the global economic slowdown is impacting their businesses, DGBAS said.
In addition, after adjusting for inflation — which climbed 1.47 percent year-on-year in the first six months — real wages fell a further 1.68 percent from a year earlier, data showed.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS