The nation’s unemployment rate last month improved to 3.67 percent, 0.03 percentage points lower than a month earlier, as the job market remained stable and hiring recovered to near pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
“The market is stable with fewer unemployed and more jobs,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said.
In February, the government’s business climate monitor was “red,” suggesting an economic boom.
Photo: CNA
The unemployment reading after seasonal adjustments was 3.72 percent, the lowest in 13 months, Chen said, adding that the figures should fall further this month and next before graduates enter the job market in the summer.
Still, the number of employed last quarter was down 3,000 compared with the same period last year, indicating that the negative effects of the pandemic remain and a low birthrate might also contribute to the drop, she said.
There were 439,000 unemployed last month, a decrease of 4,000 from a month earlier, the DGBAS report showed.
The number of people who lost their jobs to downsizing or closures fell by 3,000 and the number of first-time jobseekers dropped by 2,000, it said.
However, the number of people who quit their jobs increased by 2,000.
It took people longer to find jobs as the unemployment period extended 0.3 weeks to 22.7 weeks, it said, adding that first-time jobseekers averaged a 26-week wait to find work.
The number of people who were out of work for longer than a year grew by 4,000 to 55,000, it said.
The highest unemployment rate was among people with university degrees at 5.37 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.37 percent, while people with graduate degrees were unchanged at 2.84 percent, the agency said.
People with an education level of junior-high school or lower had the lowest unemployment rate of 2.53 percent, followed by those with a junior college education at 2.57 percent, it said.
People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate at 11.85 percent, followed by those aged 15 to 19 at 8.48 percent, 25 to 29 at 6.27 percent and 30 to 34 at 3.63 percent, DGBAS said.
People aged 45 to 64 had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.12 percent, it said.
The nation’s headline unemployment rate of 3.67 percent is higher than Japan’s 2.8 percent, but lower than South Korea’s 4.3 percent, Germany’s 4.6 percent and Hong Kong’s 6.8 percent, it added.
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