People are less optimistic about receiving pay raises next year, a survey released yesterday by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) showed.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they expected their salaries to remain unchanged next year, while a similar Cathay Financial survey conducted last year showed that 49.5 percent of respondents expected no changes in their salaries this year.
This year’s survey showed that 33 percent of 19,052 respondents said they anticipated pay raises next year, lower than the 44 percent found in the previous survey.
Photo: CNA
Meanwhile, 8.8 percent said they expected wage cuts next year, up from 6.2 percent in the previous survey, Cathay Financial said, adding that 55 percent expected to receive one to three months’ salary as a year-end bonus.
The company attributed the downbeat sentiment to a weaker outlook for economic growth and employment next year, with the survey showing that 37 percent of respondents expected Taiwan’s labor market to worsen in the next six months, compared with 35.5 percent who predicted no changes in the market and 19 percent who expect the labor market to improve.
Forty percent said they expected the economy to deteriorate in the next six months, while 32 percent expect the economy to improve, Cathay Financial said.
Most respondents forecast GDP growth of 2.78 percent for next year, it added.
Nevertheless, confidence in the market appears to have improved.
The survey showed that 34 percent said they expected local stocks to rise over the next six months, higher than the 25 percent in another survey last month, while 25 percent said that they would reallocate their assets to add more shares to their investment portfolios, up from 20.6 percent a month earlier, Cathay Financial said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is accelerating capacity expansion fivefold this year, but it is still unable to keep up with the booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said yesterday. This year alone, the company is building 25 chip manufacturing fabs and advanced packaging facilities worldwide, including 13 plants in Taiwan, which is unprecedented, Hou said at a CEO Summit fireside chat at Semicon Taiwan in Taipei. In the past, the company was able to build five or six factories a year, said Hou, who is also chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry
EXPANSION: The 3-hectare site would include small clean rooms and laboratories as well as a world-class training base for advanced packaging talent, the company said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is to establish a presence in the Baipu Industrial Park (白埔產業園區) in Kaohsiung to accelerate the testing and validation of semiconductor materials and equipment, a company executive said on Tuesday. The company is working with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Kaohsiung City Government on the plan, which is expected to improve validation efficiency by 25 to 50 percent, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC global summit held ahead of the Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opened in Taipei yesterday. TSMC would also conduct
Visitors look at a 64-qubit superconducting quantum computer on display at the Fujitsu booth at the Semicon Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday.
Silicon photonics would play a dominant role next year and make chip-level co-packaged optics (CPO) packaging possible, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. “For years, critics questioned the reliability of CPO. The doubts are being thoroughly dismantled by real-world data and market validation,” TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology development K.C. Hsu (徐國晉) said at a SEMI forum in Taipei. The company is on track to enter production of CPO later this year, Hsu said in another forum arranged by Imec in Taipei yesterday, about four months after TSMC announced its progress in CPO development in May.
RSS