Average monthly take-home pay in August rose 1.27 percent to NT$42,636 from a year earlier, while total pay, including overtime and performance-based compensation, declined 0.18 percent to NT$50,866, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Meanwhile, the labor force expanded a fractional 0.02 percent from June, but remained negative compared with a year earlier, the agency said in a report.
The latest data suggested that the labor market has increasingly emerged from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but has not yet fully recovered, DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
“The data are improving, but still leave room for a complete recovery to the pre-pandemic state,” Chen said.
Employers in the service and health sectors hired 4,000 and 2,000 extra workers respectively to enlarge the labor force to 7.95 million in August, she said.
The pool has increased for the third consecutive month after business activity at service providers picked up, driving restaurants and hotels to raise staffing levels.
Manufacturing companies on the other hand cut headcounts by 4,000, the agency’s report said, adding that non-technology firms did not fare as well as high-tech companies.
The labor force has 43,000 fewer people than in August last year and 68,000 fewer than prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Chen said, adding that firms making textile products and machinery equipment continued to struggle.
Electronics suppliers hired more workers than last year, thanks to a worldwide boom in demand from remote learning and working arrangements, Chen said.
Workers at airlines reported the highest monthly take-home pay of NT$71,706 on average, up 3.09 percent from one month earlier.
Educational facilities, excluding public and private schools, offered the lowest take-home pay, averaged at NT$25,089, as they were weighed down by the diminished business, the report said.
Employees at insurance companies enjoyed the highest monthly total pay at NT$80,906, more than three times the compensation for those at educational establishments at NT$26,334, it said.
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