Taiwan’s jobless rate for last month will likely show a slight increase, on the heels of the recent mass layoffs by major technology and media enterprises, labor experts said yesterday ahead of an official jobs report due to be released today.
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) chief economist Rick Lo (羅瑋) forecast a rise in last months unemployment rate of less than 0.1 percentage points compared with the previous month.
LAYOFFS
His forecast followed a series of layoffs launched by local firms due to weak market demand, as well as merger and acquisition deals. In addition, the number of workers on unpaid leave was on the rise.
Lo’s views were supported by Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, who said there is no reason to be pessimistic about the country’s unemployment rate, considering that export orders last month increased year-on-year.
Hsin forecast that any increase in last month’s jobless rate will be very slight. It will be highly unusual if the rate rises by more than 4.5 percent, he added.
UNEMPLOYMENT
He suggested that the government pay more attention to structural unemployment issues than to jobless figures.
The government should also be cautious about launching employment stimulus programs to avoid a crowding-out effect among job seekers, Hsin said.
RESTRUCTURING PLAN
Earlier this month, debt-ridden memory chip maker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技)) laid off more than 1,300 employees as part of a major restructuring plan.
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the memory chip manufacturing arm of the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) conglomerate, also announced plans to let about 200 employees go and transfer an additional 400 to related operations within FPG.
NEXT MEDIA GROUP
Meanwhile, Next Media Group (壹傳媒集團), founded by Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英), recently laid off more than 500 employees at three of its subsidiaries — Next TV Broadcasting Ltd (壹傳媒電視廣播), Next Multi-Media Entertainment Services Ltd (壹多媒體娛樂服務) and Next E-Shopping Ltd (壹購物) — after striking a deal to sell four of its media outlets.
Furthermore, Council of Labor Affairs data showed that as of Oct. 15, about 2,040 workers from 37 companies had reached agreements with their employers to take unpaid leave.
JOBLESS RATE
Lo said the jobless rate is likely to remain close to 4.5 percent until the end of the year and that the labor market can be expected to improve from the first quarter of next year.
The highest monthly unemployment figure recorded so far this year was 4.4 percent in August, when it rose by 0.09 percentage points from the previous month.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS