Global economic uncertainties have led domestic companies to hold a more conservative attitude on hiring since the second half of last year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Unfilled job openings totaled 191,277 in August last year, declining by 44,000 from February last year, the DGBAS said in a report.
That led the job vacancy rate, which represents unfilled positions per 100 job openings, to slide to 2.7 percent in August last year, from the 3.36 percent — the highest level in 13 years — recorded in February last year, the DGBAS said.
When the economy is booming, the vacancy rate is likely to be relatively high, while a low rate signals a recession.
On a yearly basis, the job vacancy rate was also down from 2.81 percent in the same period a year earlier, data showed.
The DGBAS conducts two surveys on job openings among local companies every year — one in February and one in August. The statistics agency discloses the results of its February poll in May and will release the August poll in January next year.
“Employee turnover remained the major factor leading to more than half of unfilled job openings,” the DGBAS said in its latest -report, adding that the proportion rose 7.9 percentage points from a year earlier to 54.7 percent in August.
Increasing workloads was the other main reason bringing in job openings, but the proportion was down 7.6 percentage points from the previous year to 31.4 percent, as orders from the US and the European countries slowed.
The vacancy rate in the industrial sector stood at 2.86 percent in August last year, down 0.39 percentage points from a year earlier, amid the sector’s slowing production demand.
Unfilled job positions in all of Taiwan’s science parks totaled 4,388, down 4,766 from a year ago, with those in Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區) — which decreased by 4,008 to 3,214 — showing the strongest decline.
However, the service sector showed an upbeat sentiment in the report for the second consecutive year.
The sector’s vacancy rate totaled 2.56 percent in August, up 0.11 percentage points from the previous year, as firms still showed strong demand for sales workers.
The duration of unfilled job openings averaged 4.2 months, up 0.2 months from a year earlier, with that in the construction industry averaging 5.8 months, the longest among all the industries.
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