Unemployment rate climbs slightly after SARS scare

The unemployment rate rose to 4.98 last month from 4.92 percent in April on increased factory closures and terminations of temporary jobs, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

The DGBAS said the nation's jobless rate last month was 5.16 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, unchanged from the previous month.

Unemployment expected to rise above 5 percent in June as new school graduates hit the market, said Chen Jin-cherng (陳金城), deputy director of the DGBAS's census bureau.

Chen the spread of SARS also contributed to the higher jobless rate last month due to its impact on business activities.

Stores, restaurants, hotels and travel agencies fired workers in recent months as the SARS epidemic kept residents at home and tourists away. The disease had a similar impact in China and Hong Kong, which together are Taiwan's No. 1 export market and travel destination.

SARS, which escalated in late April, has killed 84 people among 692 cases in Taiwan.

However, Chen said it remained possible that the jobless rate would fall to 4.5 percent by the end of this year as a result of a NT$20 billion additional budget that will add about 90,000 temporary civil service jobs.

Yesterday Chen said the jobs project will kick off next month, which may mean a fall in the nation's unemployment level in August and September, possibly back to May levels.

Last month, 499,000 people were unemployed, up 6,000 from April, the DGBAS said.

In the first five months of this year, the nation's unemployment rate stood at 5.04 percent, compared with 5.17 percent recorded for the whole of last year.