Unemployment fell to a seven-year low of 3.89 percent last month, from 3.95 percent in October, as companies increased headcount amid an economic recovery at home and abroad, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The headline reading is likely to edge down this month, as companies are offering temporary jobs ahead of the holiday season, with the jobless rate expected to stay below 4 percent for the entire year, DGBAS Deputy Director Lo Yi-ling (羅怡玲) told a press briefing.
The latest unemployment figures showed that 451,000 people were unable to find work, down 6,000 from October, as the job market slowly recovers to the pre-global financial crisis level of 3.91 percent unemployment in 2007, the agency’s monthly report showed.
Unemployment after seasonal adjustment stayed flat at 3.87 percent last month, the report said.
In the first 11 months of the year, the average rate was 3.97 percent, also the lowest in seven years, the report said.
The number of people who lost temporary jobs dropped by 2,000 last month and those who lost jobs to business downsizing or closure decreased by 1,000, the report said, adding that the number of first-time job seekers fell by 4,000.
However, the number of people who quit their jobs due to discontent increased by 2,000, it said.
Despite the downward trend, the nation’s unemployment rate remains higher than Hong Kong’s 3.3 percent, South Korea’s 3.5 percent and Singapore’s 2 percent, the report said.
By education breakdown, people with university-level or higher degrees continued to have the highest jobless rate at 5 percent, followed by college graduates at 4.34 percent and high-school graduates at 3.78 percent, the report said.
People aged 15 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate at 12.79 percent, compared with 4.02 percent for the 25-to-44 age group and 2.04 percent for the 45-to-64 age group, it said.
The average duration of unemployment extended to 26.2 weeks last month, from 25.5 weeks in October, as people spent more time finding their ideal job, the report said.
In related news, take-home wages averaged NT$38,480 a month in October, representing an increase of 2.3 percent from a year earlier, the agency said in a separate report.
For the first 10 months of the year, the average rose to a record high of NT$38,149, a pickup of 1.76 percent from the same period last year, the report said.
The real amount increased to NT$36,675 a month after being adjusted for inflation of 1.3 percent, it said.
Including year-end and performance bonuses, the average monthly wage was NT$42,198 in October, down 4.92 percent from September, but up 0.59 percent from the previous year, the report said.
For the first 10 months, average wages totaled NT$47,883, the highest level in the history of the survey.
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