A poll released by online job bank Yes123 yesterday suggested that more than half of the nation’s salaried workers are burdened with debt.
Saying the income of the average salary worker has regressed to the average level 15 years ago amid the current rise in commodity prices, Yes123 deputy director Huang Yu-ling (黃玉齡) said the poll showed that 51 percent of salaried workers spend their entire salaries within the month.
The online poll was conducted from Sept. 4 to Sept 11, collecting a total of 2,249 valid samples, she said.
The poll further suggested that 87 percent of those surveyed are afraid of starting a family, 52 percent are burdened with debt, 91 percent feel that saving their first NT$1 million (US$34,130) is impossible and 47 percent estimate it would take them at least 10 years to earn their first NT$1 million.
More than 59 percent of salaried workers cannot afford to spend more than NT$200 on daily necessities, and among that group, 17 percent manage to spend less than NT$100 a day, the poll showed.
A quarter of salaried workers indicated they expected to be able to save if their salary increased by between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000, while 16 percent indicate that they would need an additional NT$10,000 to NT$15,000 to start saving money, the poll showed.
Eleven percent said a salary increase of NT$30,000 was necessary to make saving possible, demonstrating that many salaried workers live beyond their means, the poll showed.
While 35 percent of single workers estimate that a minimum income of NT$50,000 is needed to live in Taipei, another 31 percent felt that NT$40,000 was sufficient, the poll showed.
However, according to Huang, workers fresh out of college are offered wages averaging at NT$25,000, showing a significant difference between salary expectations and reality.
At the press conference yesterday, 31-year-old Wang Yung-kang (王永康), a graduate of Chinese Culture University’s math department, said that the rising commodity prices have further devalued salaries.
After working at a hotpot restaurant for four years and taking on a number of other jobs such as tutoring and unloading cargo, Wang said that he was left with just NT$1,080 in his account after paying off his monthly bills.
Lu Chi-jung (呂綺蓉), 26. said she has a monthly income of NT$29,000. After deducting rent, expenses for necessities, some money given to her mother and student loans,, she usually has just NT$9 left for daily expenses, so she is forced to spend her entire salary within the month.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods