The unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points year-on-year to 3.38 percent last year, the lowest in 24 years, as Taiwan continued to reap a windfall from investment by global technology titans in building artificial intelligence (AI) capacity, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
That came as the unemployment rate last month dropped 0.04 percentage points month-on-month to 3.32 percent, as more first-time jobseekers landed positions and fewer people lost work to seasonal or temporary hiring, the statistics agency said.
The jobless rate would ease further this month as retailers, restaurants and entertainment facilities are raising headcounts to meet seasonal business needs ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) said.
Photo: CNA
The downtrend would likely come to an end next month, when discontented workers would choose to move on after the holiday, Tan said.
The unemployment rate after seasonal adjustments lost 0.02 percentage points to 3.39 percent, affirming a stable job market, the DGBAS said.
The jobless population declined by 1.07 percent, or 4,000 people, to 399,000 last month, after the number of first-time jobseekers fell by 3,000 and the number of people who lost work to temporary or seasonal hiring decreased by 2,000, it said.
The unemployment period averaged 20.3 weeks, 0.8 weeks shorter than one month earlier, it added.
People with university degrees had the highest unemployment rate at 4.52 percent, followed by 3.21 percent for high-school graduates, 2.68 percent for those with junior-college diplomas and 2.66 percent for those with graduate degrees, the DGBAS said.
People with junior-high or lower education had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.13 percent, it said.
People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate of 11.62 percent, as they tend to need more time adjusting to the real world, Tan said.
That was followed by the 15-to- 19 age bracket at 8.58 percent, those aged 25 to 29 at 5.87 percent and the 30-to-34 category at 3.36 percent, while people aged 45 to 64 had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.16 percent, the data showed.
Among major cities, unemployment rates last year were higher in Taipei and Keelung at 3.5 percent, and in a range of 3.3 percent to 3.4 percent in other parts of the nation, Tan said.
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