The number of workers in formal furlough programs slid 3.6 percent in the second half of last month as a glass manufacturer said it was ending its unpaid leave program, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday.
As of Saturday, the number of workers placed on unpaid leave programs had fallen by 195 to 5,296 from 5,491 as of Nov. 15, the ministry said.
The fall in furloughed workers came as a glass maker brought about 400 employees back to work because of an increase in orders, Labor Conditions and Employment Equality specialist Li Yi-hsuan (李怡萱) said.
Photo: CNA
The company has no plans to reinstate its unpaid leave program any time soon, Li added.
Overall, the export-oriented manufacturing sector still had the most furloughed workers among major sectors as non-tech firms struggled in the face of weak global demand, with the number of furloughed workers in this sector standing at 4,091 as of Saturday, accounting for more than 77 percent of the total, the ministry said.
The service sector remained relatively stable, with the number of furloughed workers in the retail and wholesale segments standing at 441 as of Saturday, and that in the hotel and food/beverage segments at 501, while the number of furloughed workers in the support service industry, which mainly consists of travel agencies, was 64, it said.
The increase in the hotel and food/beverage sectors largely reflected the sustained impact of a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in early April and subsequent typhoons in Hualien County on its tourism sector, Li said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS