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.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
FAULTs BELOW: Asia is particularly susceptible to anything unfortunate happening to the AI industry, with tech companies hugely responsible for its market strength The sudden slump in Asia’s technology shares last week has jolted investors, serving as a stark reminder that the world-beating rally in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks might be nearing a short-term crest. The region’s sharpest decline since April — triggered by a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street — has refocused attention on cracks beneath the surface: the rally’s narrow breadth, heavy reliance on retail traders, and growing uncertainty around the timing of US Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. Last week’s “sell-off is a reminder that Asia’s market structure is just more vulnerable,” Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said in
RSS