The employment outlook in Taiwan for the fourth quarter of this year improved from the previous quarter with demand strongest in the healthcare and life science sector, according to a survey by human resources advisory firm ManpowerGroup Inc published on Saturday.
After seasonal adjustments, Taiwan’s net hiring outlook index for the October-December period was 23 percent, up 7 percentage points from a quarter earlier and up 18 percentage points from a year earlier, the survey found.
The survey, which reflects hiring confidence among employers, calculates the net hiring index after seasonal adjustments, by subtracting the percentage of employers anticipating a decline in the size of their workforce from the percentage expecting an increase.
Photo: CNA
In Taiwan, about 44 percent of 612 employers polled expect an increase in employee numbers in the fourth quarter, while 19 percent anticipate a decrease, and about 34 percent expect no change in the size of their workforce.
As a result, the net hiring outlook index before seasonal adjustment stood at 25 percent, with the figure after seasonal adjustments at 23 percent, ManpowerGroup said.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan ranked No. 6 among the seven countries and regions ManpowerGroup surveyed. India took the top spot with its net hiring outlook after seasonal adjustments at 37 percent, ahead of Singapore (36 percent) and China (34 percent), while Japan came last with a hiring outlook of 11 percent, the survey showed.
In the October-December period, the net hiring outlook in the local healthcare and life science industry hit 50 percent, the highest among nine major sectors in the survey, up sharply from 28 percent in the previous quarter, ManpowerGroup said.
ManpowerGroup Taiwan general manager Joan Yeh (葉朝蒂) said in a statement that the health and life insurance industry tends to have a higher turnover rate and consumed a large amount of medical capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many young medical practitioners choosing to establish their own business or quit their job, leaving hospitals with a large staff shortage.
The power and energy industry registered the second-highest net hiring outlook at 30 percent for the fourth quarter, up from 27 percent in the third quarter, the survey found.
By prioritizing its net zero policy in the face of growing challenges created by climate change, Taiwan’s government has also paved a path for booming growth in the emerging energy and power business opportunities, Yeh said.
Under such circumstances, non-traditional power companies have rushed to enter the power market, striving to hire not only talented electrical and mechanical engineers, but also experts in other fields, such as information technology and marketing, she added.
Bucking the upturn, the banking and real-estate industry saw its net hiring prospects fall to 21 percent in the fourth quarter, from 34 percent in the second quarter, making it the only one of the major nine industries to report a decline in net hiring outlook.
The decline demonstrated the caution embraced by many employers in the banking and real-estate industry due to spillover effects from a weaker export performance in Taiwan as exporters scale back their investments in the wake of falling global demand, Yeh said.
According to the survey, large enterprises with a workforce of 250 or more employees in Taiwan and companies with a workforce of less than 10 reported the highest hiring outlook in the fourth quarter, while their counterparts with a workforce of 10 to 49 reported the weakest hiring outlook.
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