■ Moonlighters thriving
With a large number of outsourcing jobs being created amid the trend of business streamlining in Taiwan, tallies released yesterday by a local online outsourcing job bank shows that the number of moonlighters has more than doubled in the past year. According to Jcase, office workers who accepted second jobs through the job bank increased 2.37-fold from 52,372 in May last year to 124,058 in October this year. Among a wide variety of part-time jobs currently available in the job market, Jcase noted that new options are program planners for year-end or New Year parties, pet sitters, adult story writers and pornography dubbing actors.
■ Brokerages enjoy lift
Share prices of brokerage houses rose on the main bourse yesterday, after the legislature passed the amendments to the Securities and Exchange Law (證券交易法) on Tuesday that will allow brokerage houses to reserve clients' funds, a move that is expected to increase their commission income and new business opportunities. Shares of Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華) rose 6 percent to NT$23.65, Polaris Securities (寶來) edged up 5.2 percent to NT$15.1 and Capital Securities (群益) were up 4.9 percent at NT$12.85, as analysts said these brokerage houses are now allowed to engage in booming wealth management business.
■ NT dollar declines
The NT dollar declined against its US counterpart yesterday, dropping NT$0.06 to close at NT$33.256 on the Taipei Foreign Exchange.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said