Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), Taiwan’s largest financial services provider by assets, retained its title this year as the largest employer among listed peers, according to a Taiwan Stock Exchange’s (TWSE) social responsibility review released yesterday.
Cathay Financial employs about 43,000 people, comfortably ahead of the next company on the list, contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), which has 30,113 employees, and third-place Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), with 28,954 employees, the exchange said.
Telecoms operator Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and chip packager and tester Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體) ranked fourth and fifth with 24,664 and 19,500 employees respectively, the exchange said.
“Each employee [helps] support one family,” TWSE chairman Schive Chi (薛琦) said.
Along with the annual review, the stock exchange said its Taiwan Employment Creation 99 Index added five new members this year: Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), Wowprime Corp (王品), Catcher Technology Corp (可成), Far Eastern International Bank (遠東銀) and Largan Precision Co (大立光).
“The index is intended as a benchmark to guide institutional and retail investors as they look to invest in companies with a top ranking,” Schive said.
The main criteria for selecting the 99 companies include profit per employee and turnover rate. Companies with turnover rates of 1 percent or lower are not selected, the exchange said.
The 99 constituent firms employed a total of 599,000 personnel this month, up 1 percent from a year ago, the exchange said.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150