The unemployment rate last month gained 0.06 percentage points to 3.68 percent, the highest in seven months, as people lost jobs to business downsizing or closures induced by a COVID-19 outbreak, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday.
The statistics agency expects the job market to deteriorate further this month with the arrival of the graduation season and as the outbreak has yet to stabilize.
“The outbreak is to blame for the increase in the jobless rate as sectors reliant on domestic demand are again taking a hit,” DGBAS Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said, adding that historically, the jobless reading in May is normally lower than in April.
Photo: CNA
The unemployment rate after seasonal adjustments picked up 0.005 percentage points to 3.73 percent, affirming the uptrend, DGBAS data showed.
The overall jobless population stood at 434,000, an increase of 5,000 after 8,000 people lost jobs to business downsizing and closures, while the number of first-time jobseekers dropped by 2,000, the agency’s monthly report showed.
The negative impact of the outbreak is most evident in the rising number of workers furloughed, Chen said, as hundreds of companies reinstall unpaid leave to cope with a business slowdown.
Last month. the number of people working for fewer than 35 hours a week surged by 62,000 to 296,000, the highest since August last year, when the government lifted a level 3 COVID-19 alert in phases, it said.
Hotels, restaurants and retailers are bearing the brunt, as people voluntarily stay home to avoid infection, Chen said.
The situation is unlikely to improve this month and beyond with the outbreak lingering and an anticipated increase in first-time jobseekers, Chen said.
At the same time, people needed a longer time to land positions, extending the average unemployment period by 0.4 weeks to 20.8 weeks, it said, adding that the job hunting process averaged 24 weeks for first-time jobseekers.
A breakdown by education showed that university graduates had the highest jobless rate at 5.19 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.39 percent and people with graduate degrees at 2.75 percent, the agency said.
By age, people aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate at 12.16 percent, followed by the 15-to-19 age bracket at 8.14 percent, the 25-to-29 age group at 6.07 percent and the 30-to-34 age group at 3.78 percent, it said.
Taiwan’s unemployment rate of 3.68 percent is lower than Hong Kong’s 5.15 percent, but higher than South Korea’s 3 percent and Japan’s 2.7 percent, government data showed.
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) yesterday expressed a downbeat view about the prospects of humanoid robots, given high manufacturing costs and a lack of target customers. Despite rising demand and high expectations for humanoid robots, high research-and-development costs and uncertain profitability remain major concerns, Lam told reporters following the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taoyuan. “Since it seems a bit unworthy to use such high-cost robots to do household chores, I believe robots designed for specific purposes would be more valuable and present a better business opportunity,” Lam said Instead of investing in humanoid robots, Quanta has opted to invest
EXPANSION: While Gigabyte Technology is optimistic about market demand this year, uncertainty remains due to the impact of potential US tariffs and currency fluctuations Motherboard and graphics card maker Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉) yesterday said that it plans to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) server assembly line in the US in the second half of this year. The company’s core motherboard and graphics card businesses in the US remain stable, but sales of its higher-priced AI servers still hinge on the development of tariff policies, Gigabyte chairman Dandy Yeh (葉培城) told reporters following the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei. Yeh was referring to the “reciprocal” tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump on April 2, which were later postponed for 90 days. While Gigabyte
RSS