The unemployment rate, a lagging economic indicator, dropped to 4.18 percent last month — its lowest level since May last year — from 4.27 percent last month, indicating that the labor market may gradually improve, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate dropped 0.05 percentage points from the previous month to 4.22 percent, its second consecutive month of decline, DGBAS data showed.
For the whole of last year, the jobless rate averaged 4.24 percent, marking the lowest level in four years, statistics showed. However, the jobless rate for young people aged 15 to 24 stood at 12.66 percent last year, up 0.19 percentage points from 2011.
“The number of unemployed showed a decrease last year from 2011, but the pace of the decline was slower than in previous years,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Min (陳憫) told a press conference.
The number of unemployed decreased by 10,000 to 477,000 last month from a month earlier, with the number of first-time job seekers and people quitting jobs amid dissatisfaction down by 5,000, the report showed.
The economy has not shown significant recovery momentum yet, but the declining trend signified the labor market may stabilize further, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the relatively conservative outlook for the economy may decrease the employee turnover rate, making employees more hesititant to transfer jobs and employers more cautious about hiring, Chen said.
However, the unemployment rate may face some upward pressure over the next two months, because it usually increases in February and March every year — the period after the Lunar New Year holidays — as many people change jobs after receiving their annual bonuses, Chen added.
Henry Ho (何啟聖), a public relations director at 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行), shared Chen’s views, based on the rising trend in job openings in its database.
“The job market has started recovering,” Ho said, saying that job openings in the company’s database rose year-on-year rise for the third straight month last month.
Ho expected the unemployment rate to decline further this month from last month on the back of seasonal demand for part-time employees from employers in the service sector before the Lunar New Year.
The DGBAS also said that average wages for employees increased 0.64 percent in November last year from a year earlier to NT$37,305, but edged down 0.1 percent from a month ago.
For the first 11 months of last year, salaries on average grew 1.36 percent to NT$37,333. Average wages, including bonuses and compensation, dropped 0.06 percent to NT$45,721, data showed.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure