The unemployment rate stood at 3.71 percent last month, the lowest for the same month in 17 years and down 0.04 percentage points from one month earlier, as companies boosted hiring during the high sales season, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
“The labor market has benefitted from an improving economy, with relatively low jobless rates and mild wage increases,” DGBAS Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) told a news conference.
The services sector usually hire more staff to meet business demand this month and in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday.
After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate stood at 3.69 percent, the statistics agency said.
The number of unemployed people declined by 4,000 to 449,000 last month, with the number of first-time jobseekers dropping by 3,000 and the number of people who lost their jobs due to downsizing falling by 2,000.
However, the number of people who quit their jobs rose by 2,000, while those who lost their jobs because they were contract workers or due to seasonal factors rose by 1,000, the agency said.
University graduates had the highest rate of unemployment at 15.3 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.65 percent.
The jobless rate for people with graduate diplomas was 2.87 percent, the DGBAS said.
By age, unemployment was highest among people aged 20 to 24 at 12 percent, followed by the 15 to 19 age group at 8 percent, and 6.5 percent for those between 25 and 29, it said.
The unemployment rate averaged 3.77 percent in the first 11 months of the year, down 0.16 percentage points from the same period last year.
An improving economy allowed firms to raise wages in October.
The average monthly wage stood at NT$40,197 (US$1,341.33) in October, up 2.12 percent year-on-year, while the overall average monthly wage, including overtime pay, bonuses and other compensation, was NT$44,517, up 3.36 percent, the DGBAS said in a separate report.
The average monthly wage in the first 10 months of the year rose to a record NT$39,865, up 1.75 percent year-on-year, but the real gain eased to 1.18 percent after factoring in 0.59 percent inflation, it said.
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