While the economy began its recovery months ago, the job market is starting to follow suit, an online job bank said yesterday, predicting the trend would persist through the first half of next year.
"According to our database, job opportunities this month have risen by 50 percent from the beginning of the year," said Monica Chiu (
Chiu said the domestic labor market has been expanding since October last year, in tandem with the nation's economic recovery.
The surge in the labor market is concentrated in electronics components, banking and securities, as well as computer peripherals, according to the job bank.
The number of job vacancies in the electronics-components sector increased by 4,048, or 62.2 percent, to 10,563 in October from November last year, the job bank said. For financial and computer sectors, the number of vacancies increased by 66.8 percent and 48 percent, respectively, to 6,805 and 8,379 in October, the data show.
ProMOS Technologies Inc (
Construction of the plant is expected to begin in the first quarter of next year in the Central Taiwan Science-based Industrial Park, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
Traditional industries, which have largely moved to low-cost countries such as China, see only a 7 percent increase in job vacancies. Chiu said demand for blue-collar workers will gradually fall due to the migration of these industries.
Several companies, including First International Computer Inc (大眾電腦) and state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖), have recently announced large-scale downsizing, but Chiu shrugged off concerns of year-end cuts in personnel.
"We found that less than 5 percent of companies have plans to cut their staff, down from 15 percent for the same period last year," Chiu said. "Layoffs in a few companies resulted from poor operation or changes in company strategy."
Another market expert was bullish on job prospects, saying the prosperity will continue to the first half of next year.
"Overall, the number of job-wanted ads posted on our Web site so far has doubled that in the third quarter," said Ryan Wu (吳睿穎), spokesman for 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行).
Wu said the company's records show that demand for jobs related to computer peripherals and insurance, as well as imports and exports, has been stunning, growing by 250 percent, 180 percent and 200 percent, respectively, since the third quarter of last year.
There were earlier signs of a recovery in the job market.
The unemployment rate fell from 5.21 percent in August to 4.92 percent in October, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
The number of people out of work also fell from 529,000 in August to 497,000 in October, the nation's top number cruncher said.
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