The unemployment rate rose 0.05 percentage points to 4.41 percent last month, with the number of people out of work increasing by 6,000 people to 450,000, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a statement yesterday.
The agency said the increase occurred as more first-time job seekers began looking for jobs and contracts for some seasonal workers ended.
After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate was 4.54 percent last month, down 0.03 percentage points from March, the agency said.
Last month's figure of 4.41 percent compared favorably to Germany's unemployment rate of 10.3 percent, France's 9.8 percent, Canada's 7.2 percent, Hong Kong's 7.0 percent, the US' 5.6 percent, Japan's 4.7 percent and Singapore's 4.5 percent, the agency said.
The workforce grew by 32,000 to 9.76 million last month and the labor participation ratio was 57.59 percent, an increase of 0.17 percentage points month-on-month and up 0.46 percentage points year-on-year.
The number of people who lost their jobs because of business closures and job cuts fell to 168,000 last month from 172,000 in April, the agency said.
For the first five months of the year, the agency said the jobless rate was averaged 4.47 percent, down 0.57 percentage points from the same period last year.
As the government is scheduled to provide 45,552 jobs in the second half of the year, budgeted at NT$6.49 billion (about US$191 million), as part of its efforts to create jobs for the underprivileged, the agency lowered its full-year jobless rate target to below 4.5 percent from a previous range of 4.6 percent to 4.7 percent.
The government's program to increase job opportunities by promoting the expansion of public service and employment was first implemented last year and 148,009 unemployed people were given jobs. The plan helped slash the unemployment rate for last year to 4.99 percent.
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