The nation’s unemployment rate last month rose for the fourth consecutive month to 4.07 percent — the highest since November 2013 — as the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on hiring activity, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported yesterday.
The outlook for the job market is expected to deteriorate this month and through the summer, when college graduates start to look for jobs and companies are likely to remain conservative about payroll increases amid economic uncertainty, it said.
“Although the number of people without jobs climbed, the pace somewhat flattened, indicating that the pinch of the virus outbreak is losing steam,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told a news briefing.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
The unemployment rate last month increased 0.04 percentage points compared with an addition of 0.31 percentage points in April.
The latest unemployment survey, conducted between May 10 and May 16, has yet to reflect a traditional surge in first-time job seekers during the graduation season.
The jobless rate usually picks up between June and August and the DGBAS would closely monitor it, Chen said.
It takes first-time job seekers more than 27 weeks to land positions, longer than an average of 23.6 weeks for others, she said.
The jobless rate after seasonal adjustments stood at 4.16 percent, the highest since January 2014, the DGBAS said.
The total number of unemployed people grew by 5,000 to 486,000. The number of first-time job seekers fell by 2,000, but people who lost their jobs due to downsizing or closures added 8,000, slowing from an increase of 36,000 in April, the agency said.
Tourism-related sectors have seen a rapid, solid recovery after infections stabilized, Chen said.
However, the number of people who work fewer than 35 hours per week increased by 56,000 to 456,000, meaning that many workers have been furloughed, but remain on payrolls.
The employment landscape looks ominous as the government’s relief programs — mainly a 40 percent wage subsidy for companies hard hit by the pandemic — are to expire this month.
By education level, university graduates had the highest unemployment rate at 5.63 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.81 percent and people with graduate degrees at 3.29 percent, the DGBAS said.
People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate at 11.66 percent, followed by the 15-19 age group at 7.72 percent, the 25-29 age group at 6.6 percent and the 30-34 age group at 3.97 percent, it said.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS