The unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.68 percent, falling for the fifth straight month, as fewer people quit or lost their jobs due to business downsizing or closures, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The latest data showed a decline of 0.07 percentage points from a month earlier as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to subside, although it has not yet disappeared, the DGBAS said.
“The job market in Taiwan is quite stable, compared with that in other countries in terms of unemployment and labor participation rates,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told a media briefing.
Photo: CNA
The labor participation rate softened from a month earlier to 59.14 percent, the data showed.
The jobless reading after seasonal adjustments was 3.76 percent, shrinking 0.01 percentage points from November last year, affirming a stable job market, according to the agency’s monthly report.
The jobless population contracted by about 9,000 people to 440,000 last month as the number of people who lost jobs due to business downsizing or closures dropped by about 4,000, the agency said.
First-time jobseekers declined at a comparable pace, while people who quit decreased by about 1,000, it said.
For the whole of last year, the jobless rate averaged 3.85 percent, gaining 0.12 percentage points from 2019, it said.
Chen blamed the COVID-19 situation for last year’s data, as it diminished consumer activity in the first quarter, pushing the unemployment rate to 4.07 percent in May last year.
The situation started to improve after July, thanks to a boom in domestic tourism and the government’s Triple Stimulus Voucher program after infections were brought under control in Taiwan, she said.
People with university degrees had the highest unemployment rate at 5.48 percent last year, followed by high-school graduates at 3.56 percent and people with graduate degrees at 3.1 percent, the report showed.
People with a junior college education had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.78 percent, followed by people with a junior-high school education at 2.85 percent, it said.
People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate at 12.06 percent, followed by the 15-to-19 bracket at 8.18 percent, the 25-to-29 group at 6.5 percent and the 30-to-34 bracket at 3.67 percent, it said.
People aged 45 to 64 had the lowest unemployment rate of 2.3 percent, it said.
There were 4,000 jobs added last year, the poorest performance since the global financial crisis in 2008-2009, Chen said, adding that the pandemic poses continued uncertainty for this year.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
US President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. In an order released by the White House, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s businesses led the US president to believe that it might “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” The order did not name the person or detail Trump’s concerns. “The Transaction is hereby prohibited,”
Garment maker Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽) yesterday reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue of NT$7.93 billion (US$251.44 million), down 9.48 percent from NT$8.76 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, revenue fell 10.83 percent from NT$8.89 billion, company data showed. The figure was also lower than market expectations of NT$8.05 billion, according to data compiled by Yuanta Securities Investment and Consulting Co (元大投顧), which had projected NT$8.22 billion. Makalot’s revenue this quarter would likely increase by a mid-teens percentage as the industry is entering its high season, Yuanta said. Overall, Makalot’s revenue last year totaled NT$34.43 billion, down 3.08 percent from its record NT$35.52
RSS