Average monthly take-home pay in June rose 1.41 percent from a year earlier to NT$42,352, while total wages including overtime and performance-based compensation increased 4.09 percent to NT$50,581, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The data represented a pickup from May, as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic subsided in Taiwan and most companies began recovering from the outbreak, the statistics agency said.
The improvement is also evidenced by an enlarged job pool — the workforce expanded slightly by 0.08 percent to 7.9 million — the first increase since the virus broke out in late January, DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told a news briefing in Taipei.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
“The [employment] situation reported the first positive movements in June after seeing job losses between February and May,” Chen said.
A recovery in shopping activity and domestic trips lent support, she added.
Compared with a year earlier, the total number of people employed was 0.42 percent lower, the steepest decline in 11 years, indicating that the market has not completely returned to normal, Chen added.
Service-oriented sectors put up a better recovery, especially restaurants, hotels and entertainment facilities, which have benefited from pent-up demand, she said.
The manufacturing industry continued to cut payroll by 7,000, raising cumulative job losses to 25,000, mainly among machinery, metal and textile businesses, she added.
It is not clear when the manufacturing industry will come out of the woods, as uncertainty is building up due to renewed US-China trade tensions and the resurgence of virus infections in many countries, Chen said.
By sector, airline employees had the highest monthly take-home pay at NT$65,728, while workers at financial and insurance companies enjoyed the highest total wages at NT$84,405, aided by the distribution of bonuses, the agency said.
People worked an average of 168 hours in June, an increase of 5.4 hours from one month earlier, the agency said.
Overtime pay averaged NT$1,675, a drop of 2.73 percent from May, it said.
For the first six months of this year, average take-home pay advanced 1.47 percent to NT$42,277 per month, while total wages increased 1.03 percent to NT$57,505 per month, it said.
The figures rose 1.7 percent and 1.25 percent respectively after factoring in a decrease in inflation, it added.
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