Employees in Taiwan received an average bonus of NT$70,513 (US$2,479.8) for last year, the highest-ever despite economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Tuesday.
The agency said that NT$70,513 was equal to 1.64 months of the average monthly salary.
The average year-end bonus for last year, up from NT$69,577 in 2019, was calculated by combining all non-regular wages, such as bonuses, that employees received from December last year to February this year, it said.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
In Taiwan, companies tend to give year-end bonuses as an incentive to their employees before the Lunar New Year holiday. This year, the holiday — marking the beginning of the Year of the Ox — fell in the middle of February.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a major headache for some local industries, while other sectors have recovered, DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) told reporters in Taipei.
The three sectors with the highest year-end bonuses last year were finance and insurance (3.92 months), real estate (2.39 months) and manufacturing (1.82 months).
The sectors with the lowest year-end bonuses were those hardest-hit by the pandemic: the hospitality and food and beverage industries (0.49 months), as well as arts, entertainment and recreation venues (0.46 months), Chen said.
After an increase in property transactions in the second half of last year, real-estate businesses distributed significantly higher year-end bonuses (2.39 months), up from those in 2019 (1.84 months) — and the highest since 2009, Chen added.
Taiwan had 8.15 million workers at the end of February — 18,000 more than a year earlier, DGBAS data showed.
The average monthly regular wage in January and February was NT$42,976, up 1.77 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
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