The average starting salary of university graduates was NT$28,116 per month last year, an increase of NT$461, or 1.7 percent, from the previous year, a Ministry of Labor survey showed.
It was also the highest figure for university graduates’ first job since 1991, when the ministry started its annual survey on wages in different occupations.
The previous high was recorded in 2000, when the average starting salary for a university graduate was NT$28,016 per month.
In other words, the average monthly salary increased by NT$100 over the past 16 years.
Hu Meng-yu (胡孟瑀), head of the 95 Youth Labor Union, a non-profit organization made up of college students and academics, was cited by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) as saying that the growth in starting salaries for university graduates had failed to keep up with price inflation at McDonald’s.
As a result, real starting salaries have fallen over the past 16 years, Hu said.
A hospitality management student at a private university surnamed Wu (吳) said she was surprised to find during her internship at a hotel that a full-time employee at the hotel earned only NT$24,000 a month, the report said.
Wu said that after paying her school loan, rent, travel and food expenses, such a monthly salary would leave her with little disposable income.
The survey shows that among first-time employees across all educational levels, the average monthly salary last year was NT$26,723.
By sector, first-time employees in finance and insurance earned NT$31,025 per month on average, followed by NT$28,879 in the professional, scientific and technological sectors, and NT$23,598 in the service industry, including beauty salon and auto repair workers.
The survey was conducted in August last year covering 9,786 companies, the ministry said.
Lo Yi-ling (羅怡玲), head of the ministry’s Statistics Department, attributed the growth in entry-level wages to a recovering economy and the increase in the minimum wage.
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
ASEAN BATTLEGROUND: Japan and Australia could be drawn into Pacific tensions as China sets its sights on the Diaoyutai Islands and further beyond the first island chain Tensions between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to intensify, the National Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, recommending that Taiwan continue to emphasize its shared values and interests to encourage resistance to Chinese aggression. US commitments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to continue unabated despite the war in Ukraine, as Beijing takes advantage of the conflict to expand its influence in the region, the agencies said in reports delivered to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Sunday, ahead of a hearing yesterday on regional developments and trends. Although Russia’s invasion of
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said