A job fair at National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday indicated that university graduates would face a more buoyant job market this year.
Eight-thousand jobs were offered by 180 enterprises, the university said. A total of 165 companies manned 218 booths on the campus, while 39 companies held briefings for potential employees and another 14 arranged company visits.
This year’s fair showed that the economy has bottomed out because 20 percent more employers than last year attended the fair and 3,000 more jobs were available, NTU president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔) said.
Companies present at the fair were primarily from the financial, high-tech, and leisure and recreation sectors, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) drawing crowds of job seekers looking to submit their resumes.
TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, plans to hire 3,000 people this year. Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) and leading fabless chip house MediaTek Inc (聯發科) also announced they would hire 600 and 550 people respectively this year.
Jennifer Hong (洪雪珍), a top executive at the online human resource Web site yes123.com, said new graduates were expected to have more job opportunities because the local employment market appears ready to boom.
Hung said that soon-to-graduate students should take advantage of on-campus job fairs and actively distribute their resumes or personal data sheets to create interview opportunities.
In Hsinchu City, more than 6,500 job seekers flocked to a job fair on Saturday, with 1,506 landing jobs on the spot. The fair was co-sponsored by the Association of Industries in Science Parks and the Hsinchu Science Park Administration.
About 61 percent of job seekers were in the 26 to 35 age bracket, while 27 percent were 25 or younger. About 62 percent had a university education, while 12 percent held a master’s degree. Another 16 percent were senior high school graduates, and 10 percent were graduates of junior colleges, the organizers said.
The 1111 Job Bank said yesterday that most college graduates have lowered their starting salary expectations this year to NT$25,919 per month, down from NT$27,034 last year, citing a survey it conducted between Feb. 26 and on Thursday.
The online job bank’s spokeswoman, Charlene Chang (張旭嵐), said the lowered salary expectations among recent graduates hinted at the seriousness of youth unemployment.
Taiwan’s unemployment rate among people with at least a bachelor’s degree is about 6 percent at present, the latest government data showed.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KEVIN CHEN
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