Average real monthly earnings in Taiwan in the first 10 months of this year finally returned to their pre-2008/2009 global financial crisis level and rose above the all-time high set in 2004, government figures released yesterday showed.
Average real monthly earnings, which include irregular income such as overtime and bonuses and are adjusted for inflation, amounted to NT$47,567, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics figures showed.
The figure was up 3.33 percent from the same period last year and eclipsed the previous high for real monthly earnings over a 10-month period since the global financial crisis — NT$46,182 set in 2011.
The previous all-time high for average real monthly earnings during the 10-month period was NT$47,477 in 2004.
As in many other industrialized countries, Taiwan has suffered from stagnant real wages over the past two decades, a trend exacerbated by the global economic meltdown seven years ago and the widening inequality in income distribution that resulted.
The average real monthly earnings figure for January to October, though the highest ever, was still less than 1 percent higher than for the same period in 2000.
Average nominal earnings amounted to NT$49,265 for the first 10 months of the year, up 2.89 percent from a year earlier, the agency said.
Average real monthly salary (including regular wages and fixed stipends) was NT$37,330, up 1.79 percent from the same period last year.
It was the highest average real salary since the global financial crisis occurred, but still short of the average salaries of more than NT$38,000 recorded in pre-financial crisis years.
The average regular salary in October before being adjusted for inflation was NT$38,941, up 1.2 percent from the same period last year and up 0.49 percent from a month earlier, the agency said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by