The nation’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.95 percent, down 0.04 percentage points from September, as more recent graduates found jobs amid an economic recovery, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The jobless rate this month might decline further if the economy continues to improve, encouraging businesses to increase staff numbers, the DGBAS said in a report, adding that TransAsia Airways Corp’s (復興航空) decision to dissolve the company might affect the job market after the closure comes into effect.
“Unemployment eased last month as the local job market recovered from the entry of fresh graduates,” DGBAS senior executive officer Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said.
After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate stood at 3.9 percent, down 0.03 percentage points from the previous month, the DGBAS said.
The number of unemployed people last month fell by 5,000 from a month earlier to 464,000, while the number of first-time job seekers dropped by 3,000 in the same period, it said.
Fewer people last month lost their jobs owing to business closures, downsizing or temporary hiring compared with the previous month, the DGBAS said.
Despite the monthly improvement, the jobless rate slightly increased compared with a year earlier, reflecting a conservative hiring policy on the part of businesses, it said.
For the first 10 months of this year, the unemployment rate stood at 3.94 percent, up 0.18 percentage points from the same period a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
JOBLESS GRADUATES
Unemployment was highest among people who have university degrees or higher at 4.91 percent, followed by people with college diplomas at 4.28 percent, it added.
The jobless rate stood at 3.91 percent for people with high-school diplomas and at 3.05 percent for people with at most a junior-high school education, it said.
The jobless rate was highest for people in the 15-to-24 age bracket at 12.44 percent, followed by the 25-to-29 age group at 6.79 percent, the DGBAS said.
People aged between 45 and 64 had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.12 percent, it said.
The figures show that young Taiwanese with college education had more difficulty finding jobs compared with other groups, it added.
In related news, monthly take-home wages averaged NT$39,135 (US$1,225) in September, an increase of 0.99 percent from a year earlier, the DGBAS said in a separate report.
INCHING UP
The average monthly wage, including bonuses and other compensation, was NT$45,205 in September, an increase of 1 percent from a year earlier, the report showed.
In the first nine months of the year, take-home wages rose 1.33 percent to an average of NT$39,144 per month, while average salaries fell 0.24 percent to NT$50,097, as companies distributed fewer bonuses, the report said.
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