Sat, Mar 23, 2024 page12

• Unemployment rate inches higher to 3.39 percent

  • By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter
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  The nation’s unemployment rate last month rose 0.08 percentage points to 3.39 percent, as firms shed temporary staffers and discontented workers chose to move on, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

  Despite the mild uptick, the latest jobless rate represented the lowest level for the same period in 24 years, Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said.

  However, the increase meant the end of five consecutive months of decline, Chen said.

  

  A man pulls a trolley stacked with delivery boxes outside a shopping center in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District yesterday.

  Photo: CNA

  “It is common for companies to end temporary positions intended to meet the pickup in demand over the Lunar New Year holiday,” Chen said, adding that discontented workers usually resign and look for a new job after collecting their year-end bonus.

  The reading after seasonal adjustments increased 0.01 percentage points to 3.4 percent, suggesting a stable market, Chen said.

  The newly launched unemployment rate for the past four weeks grew 0.07 percentage points to 3.42 percent, affirming the upward trajectory, DGBAS data showed.

  The domestic job market is stable and healthy, Chen said.

  Taiwan’s GDP growth is expected to expand more than 3 percent this year, much faster than last year’s 1.31 percent, as global demand for technology products is likely to continue increasing following several quarters of inventory adjustments.

  Taiwan is home to the world’s largest suppliers of advanced chips and artificial intelligence servers, as well as other critical electronic components used in smartphones, notebook computers and vehicles.

  The number of unemployed people stood at 406,000, a 2.28 percent increase from January, or 9,000 people, the agency said.

  The number of people who resigned and people who were let go following business tightening and closures each increased 3,000, the agency’s monthly report showed.

  People with a university degree were the demographic with the highest unemployment rate of 4.53 percent, followed by senior-high school diplomates at 3.21 percent and junior college graduates at 2.72 percent, it said.

  Among those with a graduate degree the unemployment rate was 2.6 percent, while those with a junior-high-school diploma or lower education had the smallest unemployment rate of 2.17 percent, it said.

  People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate of 11.55 percent, followed by those aged 15 to 19 at 8.43 percent and 25 to 29 at 5.80 percent, the agency said.

  People aged 30 to 34 had an unemployment rate of 3.33 percent and those aged 45 to 64 had the lowest unemployment rate of 2.19 percent, it said.

  The unemployment period averaged 21 weeks, longer by 0.1 weeks from a month earlier, the agency said, adding that job-hunting was longer for first-time jobseekers at 22.9 weeks.

  Taiwan’s headline unemployment rate is relatively high compared with other nations in the region such as South Korea, 3.2 percent; Hong Kong, 2.7 percent; and Japan, 2.3 percent; the DGBAS said.
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