The unemployment rate last month declined 0.09 percentage points from August to 3.99 percent, although it rose 0.10 percentage points from the same period last year, government figures released yesterday showed.
After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate declined 0.02 percentage points to 3.93 percent last month, due to a drop in first-time jobseekers, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said.
That means 469,000 people were out of work, a decrease of 11,000 compared with August, the agency said.
The jobless rate tends to rise in July and August because of the entry to the job market of new university graduates.
The number of first-time jobseekers fell 7,000 from a month earlier, indicating that more new graduates found jobs, agency Census Department Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said.
Last month, the number of people who quit their jobs fell by 3,000 and the number of those who lost their jobs due to temporary or seasonal contracts dropped by 1,000, the data showed.
However, the number of those who lost their jobs because of downsizing or closures rose by 1,000 from the previous month.
The jobless rate among those aged 20 to 24 was 13.03 percent, down 0.4 percentage points from a month earlier, while the unemployment rate among those aged 25 to 29 was 6.86 percent, down 0.12 percentage points month-on-month, the data showed.
The jobless rate among people with a university degree or higher stood at 4.95 percent, down 0.16 percentage points from a month earlier, the agency said.
The labor participation rate fell 0.14 percentage points from a month earlier to 58.79 percent, with the work force totaling 11.75 million people, down 25,000, or 0.21 percent, from a month earlier.
In the first nine months of this year, the unemployment rate averaged 3.94 percent, up 0.20 percentage points from the previous year.
During the nine-month period, the average labor participation rate also rose 0.09 percentage points year-on-year to 58.72 percent, the agency said.
In related news, average earnings inched up 1.37 percent from January to August, but a rise in consumer prices chipped away at purchasing power, agency statistics showed.
Average monthly earnings rose to NT$39,146 in the first eight months, a record high for the period, but that was muted by a 1.38 percent rise in inflation, the agency said.
Consequently, real earnings fell 1.2 percent in the eight-month period, the agency said.
Average monthly earnings in the industrial and service sectors was NT$39,318 in August, an increase of 0.29 percent from the previous month and 1.4 percent year-on-year, the agency said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day