With the economy warming up, almost 85 percent of Taiwan’s white-collar employees have decided to look for a new job around the Lunar New Year, a survey has found.
In addition, more than 91 percent of office workers have thought about changing their jobs this year, while more than 45 percent have already done something about it, according to a survey released yesterday and conducted by local job bank Yes123 between Thursday last week and Monday.
Almost 75 percent of the 1,605 people surveyed said they were motivated by the prospect of higher salary. Other reasons workers cited for wanting to switch jobs included the desire for better development (49 percent), a better position (38 percent) and a more challenging job (24 percent).
However, job-hopping does not necessarily mean a salary raise, said Monica Chiu (邱文仁), vice general manager of Yes123, adding that timing is crucial.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily easier to change jobs after Lunar New Year than before,” said Chiu, explaining that by that time competition could be fiercer and employers might not be willing to wait if they are short of staff.
Nevertheless, almost 60 percent of participants still think the best time to change jobs is after Lunar New Year, once year-end bonuses have been given out, the survey indicated.
Separately, employees in Taiwan are likely to see their salaries increase by 3.5 percent next year, up from this year’s 2.8 percent rise, the global human resources firm ECA International said in a survey released on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s projected increase of 3.5 percent in salaries next year ranked the second-lowest in Asia among 14 countries, on par with Hong Kong and New Zealand, Lee Quane (關禮廉), ECA International’s regional director for Asia, said in a press release.
“Without the impact of inflation, Taiwan’s increase in salary will surpass South Korea and lead the four Asian Tigers, while employees in China will receive the largest real wage increases, not only within the region but globally,” Lee said.
The annual Salary Trends Survey of more than 50 countries in the world by ECA International showed salary increases are expected to rise 5.2 percent on average next year from this year’s 4.8 percent. Globally, Venezuela will see the highest salary increases in the survey, with 27 percent rises on average, followed by Argentina (14.5 percent) and Brazil (6.2 percent).
In the Asia-Pacific region, salaries are expected to increase by 6 percent on average next year after an increase of 5.2 percent this year, with Vietnam leading the poll (11.8 percent) followed by India (11 percent) and Indonesia (9.4 percent), while employees in Japan will continue to receive the lowest pay raise of 2.5 percent on average, the survey showed.
“While salary increases will rise again next year, the pace will slow down from that witnessed between 2009 and 2010, when salary increases within the region almost doubled,” Quane said in the release. “Nevertheless wage increases are continuing to head toward the highs of 2008 when the regional average stood at 6.9 percent.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Chen
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