The Ministry of Labor yesterday reported a significant decline of 2,202 manufacturing workers on formal unpaid leave programs over the past two weeks amid a resurgence in the manufacturing sector.
The number of workers on unpaid leave programs dropped from 9,764 to 7,562 between Jan. 2 and yesterday, data compiled by the ministry showed.
Of the 2,202 workers brought back to work full time, 2,158 work in the export-oriented manufacturing sector, with most of them employed in the metal, electric machinery, information technology (IT) and electronics sectors, which have seen rebounds in orders, the ministry said.
Photo: CNA
About 800 of the employees whose furloughs were ended were in the bicycle and bicycle component, semiconductor and metal product sectors, Labor Conditions and Equal Employment Division Deputy Director Wang Chin-jung (王金蓉) said.
Another 400 were in the IT and electronics sectors, Wang said.
The number of workers placed on formal unpaid leave programs has been declining since reaching a peak of 12,388 at the end of August last year, she said.
The downward trend is most apparent this month and is expected to continue, as many companies would need more workers to meet delivery deadlines ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, she said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Nvidia Corp’s GB300 platform is expected to account for 70 to 80 percent of global artificial intelligence (AI) server rack shipments this year, while adoption of its next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is to gradually gain momentum after the third quarter of the year, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said. Servers based on Nvidia’s GB300 chips entered mass production last quarter and they are expected to become the mainstay models for Taiwanese server manufacturers this year, Trendforce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) said in an interview. This year is expected to be a breakout year for AI servers based on a variety of chips, as
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS