The unemployment rate edged up to 3.72 percent last month, ending six months of decreases, as companies in the service sector cut temporary positions after the Lunar New Year holiday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The latest jobless figure, while gaining 0.03 percentage point from February, is the lowest in 15 years when compared with the same month of the year, DGBAS Deputy Director Lo Yi-ling (羅怡玲) said.
The statistics official attributed the stable job market to an improving economy at home and abroad, which helped boost domestic wages to a record high in the first two months of the year.
“The jobless rate rose slightly [last month] due to the losses of temporary jobs after the Lunar New Year holiday,” Lo said, adding that some workers quit jobs to search of better ones after obtaining bonuses at the end of the lunar year.
The unemployment rate after seasonal adjustments stood at 3.75 percent last month, also higher than 3.74 percent recorded a month earlier, the DGBAS report showed.
The figures suggested a jobless population of about 431,000 last month, an increase of 3,000 from February, the report said.
The number of people who quit jobs increased by 3,000 last month, while people who lost their jobs due to business closures or seasonal factors increased by 3,000, the report said.
However, first-time job seekers dropped by 3,000 last month, thanks to a growing job pool, the report said.
The service sector hired an extra 93,000 workers, while industrial sectors added 34,000 last month, from a year earlier, the report said.
Unemployment was highest among people with a university degree or higher at 4.71 percent, followed by college graduates at 4.04 percent and high-school graduates at 3.78 percent, the report said.
By age, the 15-to-24 group had the highest unemployment rate at 11.58 percent, compared with 3.91 percent for the 25-to-44 group and 1.99 percent for the 45-to-64 bracket, the report said.
The job market might remain stable going forward, as 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) reported 48,000 job openings last month, the highest in 16 years, the company said in statement.
Regular monthly wages averaged NT$38,148 in February, down 1.03 percent from January, but up 1.64 percent from a year earlier, the DGBAS said in a separate report.
Non-regular monthly wages stood at NT$86,666 in February, more than double the level in the prior year, as improved earnings allowed firms to provide better bonuses to employees, the statistics agency said.
Stripping holiday distortions, regular monthly wages picked up 1.62 percent year-on-year to a record high of NT$38,347 for the first two months, DGBAS data showed, adding that the wage increase would hit 2.2 percent after factoring in inflation.
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that it is considering further capacity expansion as customers are requesting more capacity due to rising end-market demand and persistent supply constraints. The Hsinchu-based company said that emerging technologies and applications from 5G, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles are driving semiconductor demand. The semiconductor industry has a positive outlook for this year and beyond, with shipments of all diameters of wafers to increase through 2023, GlobalWafers said. “We have received requests for expansion from many strategic partners. We are now in discussions with customers,” company chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told a
OUTBREAK: About 200 of the airline’s 1,200 pilots are not able to work. Most of them have been quarantined to prevent further infection, but 12 have COVID-19 China Airlines Ltd (CAL,中華航空) yesterday confirmed that it would temporarily reduce its cargo flight services to cope with a pilot shortage, as one-sixth of its pilots have been sidelined by a COVID-19 outbreak. “We are working out a new schedule,” the airline said in a statement after local news media reports on Saturday said that it would be reducing its cargo services from Wednesday, primarily affecting US destinations. CAL declined to give details about its new operating plan, but the reports said that it would be suspending its cargo flights to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and
XSEMI: The new venture would consolidate the strengths and resources of the two market leaders to secure chip supply and offer clients total solutions, the partners said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Yageo Corp (國巨) yesterday signed an agreement to form a joint venture called XSemi Corp (國瀚半導體) to develop” small ICs” priced under US$2 per unit, marking the latest effort by Hon Hai to bolster its foothold in the semiconductor market. The collaboration fits into Hon Hai’s plans for expansion by providing a steady supply of small semiconductors, while also serving the global market, the companies said in a joint statement. The new company, to be located in Hsinchu, would “consolidate the strengths and resources of the two market leaders” to provide a “complete semiconductor
German semiconductor producer Infineon Technologies AG on Tuesday said that microchip supply bottlenecks could continue into next year, in a blow to the auto industry. “We predict that the imbalance between supply and demand will continue for a few quarters yet, with the risk that it lasts into 2022,” Infineon chief executive Reinhard Ploss said in a virtual news conference. He added that the “bottlenecks” are a particular problem for the Munich-based company in areas where they do not produce the chips themselves, but buy them from subcontractors to equip microcontrollers for vehicles or smart appliances. The auto industry remains plagued by
RSS