About 84 percent of local corporations do not have recruitment plans for next year, while the average starting salary for college graduates is less than NT$30,000 (US$1,000) a month, a survey conducted by Taipei City’s Department of Labor on youth employment showed.
The survey interviewed 2,300 graduating college students and 1,648 local firms and was conducted from April 3 through April 30.
According to the poll, the average starting pay for new graduates was NT$26,128 a month this year, which is more than NT$6,000 lower than the first-time job seekers’ expected salary of NT$32,251.
The starting monthly salary of about NT$29,000 offered in the construction industry is the highest of all sectors. Starting salaries in the transportation, IT and manufacturing sectors are about NT$27,000, while the food and beverage and hotel industries offer the lowest starting salaries, at about NT$20,000.
A total of 84.2 percent of local firms said they did not have any plans for recruitment within the next year. Of all job openings on offer for college graduates this year, about 50 percent are in the service industry, while 15 percent are for administrative workers.
Department Commissioner Chen Yeh-shin (陳業鑫) said the survey showed there was a wide gap between college graduates’ expectations and the employment environment in relation to average pay and job availability.
Recent data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics show that a total of 477,000 people were unemployed in June, with the number of first-time jobseekers failing to find work rising by 13,000.
To boost the employment rate in the city, the department is holding a job fair at the CPC Corp, Taiwan building in Xinyi District (信義) tomorrow, Chen said.
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