The average monthly wage in May rose 2.77 percent from a year earlier to NT$46,451, while the average total monthly wage — including overtime compensation, performance-based commissions and bonuses — increased 5.3 percent to NT$57,866, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The average wage rose for the second consecutive month after adjustments for inflation at 2.23 percent, thanks to economic improvements that enabled corporations to offer compensation that beats inflation, Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said.
Nevertheless, 67.73 percent of Taiwanese workers did not earn wages on par with the average, the agency’s report showed.
Photo: CNA
Information and communications technology firms and content creators, and financial and insurance companies provided the highest regular monthly wages at NT$67,514 and NT$69,043 respectively, it said.
By contrast, wages were the weakest at hotels, restaurants and hairdressers at between NT$34,912 and NT$35,871, it said.
Poor compensation helped account for high employee turnover and persistent labor shortages at hospitality facilities, human resources firms have said, as young people seek employment at tech firms.
In the first five months of this year, the average monthly wage increased 2.46 percent to NT$46,173, while the total monthly wage average rose 3.88 percent to NT$65,837, the agency said.
The advances tapered off to 0.22 percent and 1.6 percent respectively after factoring in inflation, it said.
The employment data also lent support to an economic uptrend, as the total number of workers hired in the industrial and service sectors rose by 7,000, or 0.09 percent, to 8.42 million workers, Chen said.
In particular, manufacturers expanded their payroll by 1,000 employees, ending 21 months of declines due to sharp global inflation and monetary tightening, she said.
Overtime hours, another gauge for the manufacturing industry, held steady at 16.6 hours, the highest since June last year, she said.
“If the uptick continues in the coming months, we can say for sure the manufacturing industry is coming out of the woods,” Chen said.
Taiwan’s non-tech sectors and some tech firms remain weighed by soft market demand and sharp competition from abroad.
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