About 32 percent of companies in the industrial and service sectors raised wages last year thanks to growing revenue amid a stable global economy, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Thursday.
Citing a survey, the agency said that 34.7 percent of employers in the industrial sector and 28.7 percent in the service sector raised wages last year.
The survey showed that 76.9 percent of financial and insurance companies last year raised regular wages of employees, followed by 41.7 percent in the manufacturing industry, it said.
Photo: CNA
The pay hikes in the financial sector reflected a booming equity market last year, which boosted the profitability of many financial firms, while export-oriented tech companies raised pay as they benefited from robust global demand for emerging technologies, said Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣), deputy director of the agency’s Census Department.
Among the employers that raised wages, 50.2 percent based salary increases on employee performance, while 36.0 percent considered higher profits and 34.5 followed the government’s minimum wage increase, the agency said, adding that 16.8 percent considered the effects of inflation on their workers.
In the first quarter of the year, 33.6 percent of employers in the industrial and service sectors said they planned to raise wages, while 67 percent of companies with a workforce of more than 100 employees had either given pay increases or were planning to do so.
However, there is growing uncertainty about the domestic economy due to high inflation caused by a spike in commodity prices amid the Ukraine invasion and the surge of local COVID-19 cases, Chen said.
Whether wages would remain at their new levels and for how long is uncertain, she said.
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