The unemployment rate last month declined 0.05 percentage points from a month earlier to 3.43 percent, the lowest figure for the period in 23 years, as more first-time jobseekers found jobs and fewer people quit, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The unemployment rate has dropped for two months in a row after unfavorable factors linked to the graduation season faded, Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said, adding that it would drop further in the coming months.
“Companies focused on domestic demand are to raise their headcounts to meet a seasonal uptick in business this quarter,” Chen said.
Photo: CNA
Data from the past five years showed that the unemployment rate dropped 0.09 to 0.19 percentage points over the high sales season in November and December, the official said, adding that department stores and the hospitality sector would benefit from corporate and family feasts that usually come with prize draws.
Unemployment after seasonal adjustments dropped 0.03 percentage points to 3.41 percent, affirming a stable job market, Chen said.
Major restaurant operators said that more than 10,000 tables have been reserved for year-end and spring banquets, as companies are emerging from COVID-19 disruptions for the first time since 2020.
The performance of manufacturers has been relatively soft, as many are still dealing with the effects of a global trade slowdown, Chen said, adding that their overall headcount declined by 2,000 month-on-month and 19,000 year-on-year.
“It is too early to tell when the slowdown might come to an end, as geopolitical tensions are intensifying and global inflation is still elevated,” the official said.
The total number of unemployed people shrank by 5,000 to 411,000 month-on-month after the number of people who quit their jobs decreased at the same pace, the DGBAS report said.
University degree graduates had the highest unemployment rate of 4.68 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.14 percent and people with graduate degrees at 2.7 percent, the report said.
People with junior-high school education or lower had the lowest jobless rate of 2.39 percent, it said.
Meanwhile, people aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate of 11.56 percent, followed by the 15-to-19 age group at 8.45 percent and the 25-to-29 age group at 6.02 percent, the report said.
People aged 45 to 64 had the lowest jobless rate of 2.1 percent, it said.
The average unemployment period was 20.7 weeks, down by 0.2 weeks from a month earlier even though first-time jobseekers needed a bit more time to find work, the DGBAS said.
Taiwan’s headline unemployment rate was higher than Hong Kong’s 3 percent, Japan’s 2.6 percent and South Korea’s 2.1 percent, the agency added.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS