The nation's record jobless rate is set to rise further in the next 12 months with the nation's entry into the WTO exacerbating the situation, officials said yesterday.
Figures released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed that unemployment hit 4.57 percent last year, up from 2.99 percent the previous year and the highest level since figures were first compiled in 1978.
PHOTO: AP
The December rate fell slightly to 5.22 percent from 5.28 percent in the previous month, but was considerably higher than the 3.27 percent recorded a year earlier, DGBAS said.
A decrease in first-time job seekers and an increase in part-time jobs during Taiwan's holiday season were the main reasons for the unemployment figure's drop last month, according to DGBAS.
The unemployment situation was likely to remain grim this year and could exceed 4.7 percent on average, a DGBAS official said.
"The Council for Economic Planning and Development [CEPD] earlier targeted a 2002 unemployment rate of below 4.7 percent. I believe it will be difficult to attain that goal," said Chen Jin-cherng (陳金城), deputy director of DGBAS's bureau of census.
The CEPD also estimated that the nation's entry into the WTO would aggravate the nation's unemployment by 0.22 percentage points this year.
"Now that unemployment has risen to above 5 percent, it will not be so easy for the figure to come down sharply anytime soon. I'm skeptical if it could come down to below 5 percent in March or April," Chen said.
While overseas orders are forecast to rise this year, job losses may continue as competition stiffens and more companies move to China.
The rising jobless rate "is partly a structural issue as capital flows to lower cost bases in mainland China," said Michael Kurtz, an economist at Bear Stearns Asia Ltd.
"Unemployment at these levels is going to create some problems getting the fire under consumer spending."
DGBAS anticipates the country's unemployment rate will ease further ahead of the Chinese New Year in mid-February thanks to the expected increase in temporary employment before the holidays and new jobs created by the launch of the nation's first computerized lottery.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
RSS