Industrial and service sector employers remain cautious about hiring as the pace of economic recovery remains slow, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
Citing the results of the survey conducted in August, the DGBAS said the two sectors sought to fill a total of 186,942 vacancies, representing a vacancy rate of 2.59 percent as of the end of the month.
The vacancy rate was down 0.01 percentage points from a similar survey conducted in February, but up 0.12 percentage points from a survey conducted in August last year.
The DGBAS said the small changes in the job vacancy rate in the three surveys showed that many employers in the two sectors remained reluctant to boost their job openings significantly due to the slow local economy.
Last month, the DGBAS downgraded its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth to 1.74 percent for this year, from its August estimate of a 2.31 percent rise.
INDUSTRIAL SECTOR
As of the end of August, the industrial sector had a total of 88,708 job openings with a job vacancy rate of 2.71 percent. The industrial sector includes manufacturing, mining, utilities and construction.
The manufacturing segment offered the largest number of job openings, 76,491, in the industrial sector, with a job vacancy rate of 2.77 percent, according to the survey results.
The DGBAS said the job vacancies in the manufacturing sector largely came from the booming semiconductor assembly business, as well as high job mobility in the sector.
The agency said that on the back of expansion in production capacity for consumer electronics, job vacancies in the country’s science-based industrial parks rose 1,872 from a year earlier to 7,444.
In the service sector, job openings as of the end of August had reached 98,234, with a job vacancy rate of 2.49 percent, the DGBAS said.
RETAIL AND WHOLESALE
The retail and wholesale segments reported 36,223 job vacancies, the highest number among the all segments in the service sector, with a job vacancy rate of 2.31 percent, the DGBAS said.
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