The unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.78 percent, the lowest in 19 months, as more first-time jobseekers found employment and fewer people quit over the Lunar New Year holiday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a report yesterday.
The figure could inch up this month, as people unhappy with their jobs might quit and look for better ones after receiving their annual bonuses, the agency said.
“The job market showed improvement, backed by an ongoing economic recovery and a pickup in business over the Lunar New Year holiday,” senior executive officer Hou Mei-ling (侯美鈴) said.
The unemployment rate after seasonal adjustment stood at 3.84 percent, a 0.01 percentage point increase from December last year, the report said.
There were about 445,000 unemployed people in the nation last month, a decrease of 1,000 from a month earlier, agency data showed.
The number of first-time jobseekers and people who quit their jobs dropped by 1,000, while the number of people who lost their jobs due to business closures, downsizing and temporary work increased by 1,000, the report said.
The jobless rate was highest among people who have university degrees or higher at 4.65 percent, followed by college graduates at 4.06 percent, the report said, adding that the rate was highest among people aged 15 to 24 at 12.1 percent, followed by the 25-to-29 age bracket at 6.58 percent.
Separately yesterday, the agency said that monthly take-home wages averaged NT$39,729 in December last year, an increase of 1.35 percent from the same period a year earlier.
When bonuses and other perks were factored in, monthly wages averaged NT$47,728, gaining 2.12 percent from the same period a year earlier, the agency said.
For the whole of last year, average monthly wages rose 0.62 percent year-on-year to NT$48,790, while real average wages declined 0.77 percent after factoring in a 1.4 percent increase in inflation last year, it said.
Last year, people worked an average of 176.4 hours per month, down 5.8 hours from 2015, it added.
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