Affected by a slowing economy, the average non-regular compensation for the first two months of the year grew 0.94 percent, the slowest annual pace in three years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Even though non-regular compensation for January to February hit a new high of NT$33,000 (US$1,069) on average per month, its annual advance lagged behind the growth of 6.95 percent for the corresponding period last year and 4.76 percent in 2017, the DGBAS said in a report.
DGBAS Deputy Director Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) attributed the slower growth to a higher comparison base a year earlier and the fact that most listed companies reported declining pretax earnings for last year.
As most companies distributed employee bonuses in January and February, the non-regular compensation — comprising mostly performance-based bonus and, to a lesser degree, overtime pay — for the period serves as a gauge for business performance last year, Pan told a news conference.
“As Taiwan’s economy started slowing down in the fourth quarter of last year, with quarterly GDP growth sliding to 1.78 percent, some listed firms were more conservative on employee bonuses,” Pan said.
“However, aggregate bonuses still rose moderately,” he said.
For the January-to-February period, financial and insurance companies offered the highest combined non-regular compensation at NT$190,295, followed by electronics manufacturers at NT$114,658, and electricity and gas supply firms at NT$94,180, the agency’s data showed.
In comparison, after-school tutorial institutions, security companies, and catering and lodging businesses paid the lowest non-regular compensation of NT$10,568, NT$18,646 and NT$20,999 respectively, the data showed.
“There are more part-time staff in those three industries, so employees usually receive much lower non-regular wage on average compared with other sectors,” Pan said.
In the first two months, average monthly take-home pay gained 2.09 percent year-on-year to NT$41,442, while total compensation averaged NT$74,442, up 1.57 percent from a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
After factoring in inflation, real monthly take-home pay averaged NT$40,673 for January and February, up 1.89 annually and hitting a 15-year high after the NT$40,796 recorded in 2004, as nominal wages increased more rapidly than consumer prices, which grew an average of 0.2 percent year-on-year for January and February, it said.
Average overtime hours came in at 7.4 hours in the first two months, down 0.4 hours from the same period last year, the DGBAS said.
Average overtime hours have been on a decline since November last year due to a slowing economy, Pan said, adding that the agency would continue to monitor the situation in the following months.
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