Nearly 80 percent of workers in Taiwan want to change jobs before the Lunar New Year, hoping to see their salaries increase by nearly NT$8,000 per month, according to the results of a survey by an online recruiting firm released yesterday.
The survey found that two months ahead of the Lunar New Year, which next year falls on Feb. 8, 78.6 percent of respondents have considered changing jobs, up 7.3 percentage points from last year and the highest percentage since the financial crisis eight years ago.
Of those, more than 75 percent said they have taken action by sending out their resumes.
The reasons cited for wanting to change jobs included low salary (40.3 percent), no chance of promotion (30.9 percent), the employer’s lack of future prospects (30.5 percent), dissatisfaction with the job (28.2 percent) and no raises for too long (26.8 percent).
The survey also found that respondents hoped to see salary increases of NT$7,898 per month on average, up NT$426 from NT$7,472 last year.
Based on the nation’s average regular monthly salary of NT$38,631 in the first nine months of the year, that would represent an average salary increase of 20.4 percent.
However, many respondents also worried that leaving their current job early could hurt their year-end bonus, which is usually handed out by companies before the arrival of the Lunar New Year.
A separate survey conducted among employers found that the willingness of businesses to recruit new workers has fallen to a two-year low, but the starting salary they are offering to new hires has reached NT$30,000, a new high since the global financial crisis.
Nearly 87 percent said they plan to hire new personnel before the Lunar New Year, a decline from 93.7 percent last year and 91.1 percent in 2013.
Of those employers, more than three-fifths said they were looking to fill openings recently vacated, while the remainder said they wanted new people to expand their operations.
The silver lining is that the enterprises are offering a starting monthly salary of NT$30,577, NT$781 more than last year’s NT$29,796, surpassing NT$30,000 for the first time ever in the survey and setting a new high since the financial crisis.
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