The unemployment rate stood at 4.08 percent last month, up 0.06 percentage points from the previous month and up 0.18 percentage points from the year-earlier level, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate was 3.95 percent, it said.
The number of unemployed reached 480,000 last month, up 8,000 from a month earlier and an increase of 24,000 from a year earlier, it said.
The spike in the unemployment rate was the result of an increase in first-time jobseekers due to the graduation season and a rise in part-time jobseekers, Census Department Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said.
The DGBAS numbers showed that the first-time jobseekers rose by 5,000 from July, and the number of those who lost their jobs due to business downsizing or closures rose by 1,000.
The number of those who were unhappy with their jobs and quit rose by 1,000, as did the number of people who lost their jobs because their temporary contracts expired.
National Development Council Minister Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝) said the rising jobless rate was not unusual during graduation season.
As the unemployment rate is a lagging economic indicator, it takes time for the job market to show signs of improvement, he added.
The latest data showed that the jobless rate last month among the 20 to 24 age group hit 13.43 percent, up 0.38 percentage points from July, but fell 0.21 percentage points from a year earlier, while the unemployment rate among the 25-29 age bracket reached 6.98 percent, up 0.13 percentage points month-on-month and also up 0.27 percentage points year-on-year, the DGBAS said.
The jobless rate among those with a university degree or higher stood at 5.11 percent, up 0.11 percentage points from a month earlier and also up 0.04 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.
In the first eight months of this year, the jobless rate averaged at 3.93 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier.
The average nominal regular monthly wage in the first seven months of the year rose 1.36 percent from a year earlier to NT$39,118, the highest level compared with the same periods in the past, the DGBAS said.
However, the average monthly nominal wage, which comprise regular salaries and non-regular salaries such as bonuses and overtime pay, fell 0.06 percent year-on-year to NT$51,429 in the first seven months, the DGBAS said, citing smaller bonus payouts by employers at a time when the economy was slowing down.
After inflationary adjustments, the average monthly real wage fell 1.53 percent to NT$49,200 over the period, while the average monthly real regular wage during the same period also fell 0.13 percent year-on-year to NT$37,423.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last