Taiwanese companies plan to hire more employees next quarter, led by the manufacturing sector, to meet growing demand for electronic parts and machinery in the upcoming high sales season, US-based human resources advisory firm ManpowerGroup said yesterday.
The quarterly survey found that 26 percent of employers plan to raise staffing levels, 4 percent intend to cut head count and 68 percent plan maintain to their levels.
The net jobs gain after seasonal adjustments was forecast at 22 percent, slowing 1 percentage point from three months earlier, but expanding at the same pace as a year earlier, thanks to a mildly improving economy at home and abroad.
“Employment levels are expected to increase in all seven industries during the final quarter of this year, although hiring plans somewhat weaken in four sectors if compared with this quarter,” ManpowerGroup Taiwan operations director Joan Yeh (葉朝蒂) said.
The manufacturing industry showed the strongest demand for extra personnel with a net gain of 28 percent, an increase of 3 percentage points from the previous quarter, the report said.
Taiwan is home to scores of Apple Inc suppliers, which have been ramping up production for the launches of new iPhones in the US yesterday to mark the gadget’s 10th anniversary.
The nation’s exports last month rose 12.7 percent to a nearly four-year high of US$27.77 billion and the pace might accelerate toward the Christmas season, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday last week.
Semiconductor engineers and electrical technicians are in great demand, as local chipmakers and machine manufacturers have benefited from increasing demand for Internet of Things applications and “smart” production, Yeh said.
The service industry posted a net gain of 25 percent, unchanged from three months earlier, but adding 3 percentage points from a year earlier, spurred by new demand for virtual reality and mobile games, Yeh said.
Job openings for artists and graphics designers are increasing and a fast wage increase in China has helped drive up demand in Taiwan, Yeh said.
The net jobs gain for financial sectors was forecast at 25 percent, slowing from a quarter and year earlier, the report found.
Financial firms have already filled most job openings this year and mainly need call center operators and information technology engineers to strengthen e-commerce-related business, ManpowerGroup said.
The job market outlook is weakest for the leisure and hospitality industry, with a net gain estimated at 1 percent, a 20 percent decline from three months earlier, the report said.
Yeh attributed the stagnation to a continued slump in the number of Chinese tourists, for which travelers from other nations have been unable to make up.
As a result, hotels and restaurants in eastern and southern Taiwan have preferred not to fill vacancies after employees quit, Yeh 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],”
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
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