Average monthly take-home pay in May increased 0.68 percent year-on-year to NT$42,172 (US$1,424), narrowing from a 0.91 percent gain in April as the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected businesses in the tourism and non-technology sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The latest data represented the slowest increase in seven years, as firms continued to shed employees due to the pandemic, the agency said.
“The economic situation at home has improved given that job losses eased from 13,000 to 5,000 at restaurants, hotels and retailers,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told a news briefing in Taipei.
Adding in performance-based compensation and overtime, total average pay was NT$49,609 a month, a 1.37 percent decline from the same period last year, the agency said.
Loosened social distancing requirements and the Triple Stimulus Vouchers should help maintain the improvement for domestic businesses, Chen said.
The average take-home wage for employees of hotels and restaurants gained 1.49 percent month-on-month to NT$31,551, while total average pay picked up 0.26 percent to NT$32,492, the agency said.
However, the pain inflicted by the pandemic remains acute for airlines and non-technology manufacturers, Chen said.
Take-home salaries shrank 5.11 percent month-on-month NT$65,814 for employees of airlines, while total average pay shed 2.55 percent to NT$72,875, the agency said.
Average wages for employees of machinery makers edged down 0.14 percent month-on-month to NT$33,042, while wages of employees of electricity and gas suppliers lost 0.13 percent, it said.
By contrast, employees in the electronics and real-estate industries reported total average wage gains of 29.11 percent and 21.05 percent respectively, thanks to performance-based bonuses, the agency said.
By sector, employees at airlines had the highest take-home pay of NT$65,814, while those of financial services and life insurance firms had the best total average pay of NT$93,192, it said.
In the first five months of the year, the average wage was NT$42,257 a month, an increase of 1.47 percent from the same period last year, it added.
That was an increase of 1.59 percent after factoring in a decline in the consumer price index, the agency said.
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