The unemployment rate rose for the third consecutive month to 3.81 percent last month, as new graduates entered the job market, and more than 10,000 have not landed a position, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The figure represented the lowest level for the same month in 18 years, thanks to a stably expanding economy, which encouraged companies to raise headcounts to meet business demand, DGBAS Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said.
“It is common for the jobless gauge in July to gain by 0.1 to 0.11 percentage points from June and this year proved no exception,” Pan told a news conference.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 3.69 percent, a marginal increase of 0.01 percentage point from one month earlier.
The number of unemployed increased by 14,000 to 453,000, with first-time jobseekers swelling by 11,000 alone, the DGBAS said, adding that the number tends to ease at the end of the summer vacation.
The number of people who quit or lost jobs to temporary or seasonal hiring rose by 1,000 each, but people who lost jobs due to business downsizing or closures dropped by 1,000, it said.
By education breakdown, university graduates had the highest unemployment rate at 5.27 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.65 percent and people with graduate degrees at 3.05 percent, it said.
Unemployment was highest among people aged 20 to 24 at 12.42 percent, followed by those aged 15 to 19 at 8.66 percent and those aged 25 to 29 at 6.39 percent, it added.
The unemployment period last month averaged 21.5 weeks, 1.4 weeks shorter than one month earlier, it said.
Firms in the service sector added 14,000 workers to their payrolls last month, accounting for 59.38 percent of the workers’ pool, the DGBAS said.
Companies in the industrial and agricultural sectors hired an additional 8,000 and 2,000 workers respectively, it said.
Taiwan’s unemployment is higher than neighboring economies, it said.
The jobless rate in Hong Kong was 2.8 percent and 2.1 percent in Singapore.
Japan had an employment rate of 2.4 percent and South Korea had a jobless rate of 3.7 percent.
The unemployment rate for the first seven months of this year averaged 3.68 percent, the lowest for the period in 18 years, boding well for private consumption, which the DGBAS last week said might replace exports as the main growth driver in the second half of the year.
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