Amid the global financial turmoil, 38 percent of local banking employees said they had either volunteered or been forced to leave their jobs within the last six months, a survey by an online human resources agency showed yesterday.
Careers in the financial industry, which are traditionally regarded as desirable and profitable, have been hit hard by the global financial meltdown, with 7.1 percent of banking employees in Taiwan being laid off and another 30.8 percent volunteering to leave their jobs within the last six months, 1111 Job Bank’s (1111 人力銀行) latest poll showed.
FALLING VACANCIES
“The number of resumes that we receive has nearly doubled. However, the number of job vacancies has decreased,” Ryan Wu (吳睿穎), chief operating officer and spokesman of 1111 Job Bank, told a media briefing yesterday.
Nearly 73 percent of the financial institutions that have not imposed layoffs have begun to adjust their policies in the wake of the financial crisis, with the majority choosing to leave vacancies unfilled and increasing the work load on remaining employees.
Moreover, nearly 60 percent of workers have seen their monthly income slashed by an average of NT$6,680, the survey showed.
Aside from job losses, about 90 percent of bank employees who have invested in financial products have seen their investments drop by 31.7 percent or NT$260,000 on average compared with half a year ago.
INVESTMENT LOSS
Among those who have suffered investment losses, 46 percent said they had no plans of exiting the market, but would adopt a more conservative investment strategy. About 38 percent said they would stick to their original investment plans, while 11 percent said they would give up their investments.
As for the government’s plan to create 40,000 job opportunities, Wu said it would only help create part-time or hourly jobs but would not provide much help to ease the nation’s climbing unemployment rate, which reached 4.1 percent in August.
“Even if all 40,000 job opportunities were created next month, Taiwan’s unemployment rate will at most go down by 0.3 percent,” Wu said, adding that the real cure was to revitalize the local business environment.
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