The unemployment rate last month edged down 0.04 percentage points to 3.36 percent from a month earlier, the third consecutive month of decline, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The figure was the second-lowest recorded for the month of November in 24 years, second only to 3.34 percent in November last year, the agency said in a report.
After seasonal adjustments, the unemployment rate rose 0.03 percentage points to 3.41 percent from August, the report showed.
Photo: CNA
The number of unemployed people last month fell by 5,000 month-on-month to 403,000, the DGBAS said, attributing the decline mainly to a lower number of people unhappy with their jobs.
The number of people employed in the domestic agricultural and services sectors fell by 2,000 each from a month earlier, but there were 1,000 more jobs in the industrial sector, it said.
Overall, the local labor market has stabilized, given the decline in the unemployment rate and the number of people who are unemployed, it added.
The stabilization of the labor market was also reflected in youth unemployment figures.
The unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 19 edged down to 7.91 percent from 9.12 percent in October; fell to 11.3 percent from 11.84 percent for people aged 20 to 24; and fell to 5.85 percent from 6.07 percent for those aged 25 to 29; but rose to 3.46 percent from 3.44 percent for those aged between 30 and 34, the report showed.
People with a university degree had the highest unemployment rate at 4.49 percent, followed by high-school graduates at 3.13 percent and graduate degree holders at 2.97 percent, the data showed.
The average unemployment period last month rose slightly to 21.1 weeks, as it took first-time jobseekers an average of 23.2 weeks to land positions, while others spent 20.5 weeks finding jobs, the report said.
The number of people who were unemployed for more than a year last month rose by 4,000 from October to 51,000 and increased by 6,000 from a year earlier, it said.
In the first 11 months of this year, the unemployment rate was 3.39 percent, down 0.1 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.
Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) said that if economic conditions remain stable, the jobless rate is expected to fall further as this month is the traditional peak consumption season before the Lunar New Year holiday.
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