The unemployment rate fell 0.13 percentage points from August to 3.66 percent last month, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday.
Last month’s figure was also 0.3 percentage points lower than the level in September last year and the lowest in five months, the agency said in its monthly report.
The unemployment rate after seasonal adjustments fell 0.03 percentage points from August to 3.64 percent, the report said.
Photo: CNA
The result is in line with the statistics agency’s expectations, following the peak period for university graduates to enter the job market, which often falls between June and August.
The number of unemployed people last month fell by 16,000 from a month earlier to 433,000, with the number of first-time jobseekers failing to land positions decreasing by 9,000 monthly and those who lost their jobs due to business downsizing and closures dropping by 5,000, the report said.
The number of people who worked fewer than 35 hours a week was 213,000 last month, down from 279,000 in August and 295,000 in September last year, the agency said.
The DGBAS said the local labor market has returned to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, given the declines in both the unemployment rate and the number of people who were unemployed.
The improvement in the labor market was also reflected in youth unemployment figures. The unemployment rate among people aged 20 to 24 fell to 12.7 percent from 13.06 percent in August. The rate for the 25-to-29 age bracket dropped to 6.01 percent from 6.18 percent, while the rate for the 15-to-24 age group was 8.95 percent last month, little changed from 8.9 percent in the previous month, the data showed.
The unemployment rate for people aged 30 to 34 fell to 3.87 percent from 3.89 percent in August, the report said.
By education breakdown, people with university education had the highest unemployment rate with 5.29 percent, followed by high-school graduates with 3.26 percent and graduate degree holders with 2.8 percent, the data showed.
The average unemployment period last month rose by seven days to 22 weeks, as it took first-time jobseekers 20.8 weeks to land positions, while others spent 22.3 weeks finding jobs, the report said.
The number of people who had been unemployed for more than a year last month fell by 2,000 from August to 62,000, but rose by 18,000 from a year earlier, it said.
In the first nine months of this year, the unemployment rate was 3.69 percent, down 0.35 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.
Looking ahead, the jobless rate would likely fall further this month thanks to the recovery in the service sector, it added.
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