The average monthly regular wage in September was NT$48,110, a 3.19 percent increase from September last year and up 0.07 percent from August, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Including overtime, bonuses and other commissions, the overall monthly wage averaged NT$57,452, an annual increase of 1.85 percent, but a monthly decline of 6.78 percent, the DGBAS said in a report.
In September, the median monthly wage — generally considered a more accurate measure of people’s income as extremely high or low wages do not skew it — increased 3.56 percent year-on-year and 0.36 percent month-on-month to NT$38,632 on average, indicating that most workers still earned less than the average, the agency said.
Photo: CNA
The latest wage data were based on the agency’s survey of employees in the nation’s industrial and service sectors. The total number of employees as of Sept. 30 was 8.547 million, up 2,000 or 0.02 percent month-on-month, it said.
People working in the agriculture, forestry, fishing and animal husbandry sectors, at government agencies, schools, and religious or occupational groups were not included in the survey, the DGBAS said.
From January to September, the average monthly regular wage was NT$47,751, up 3 percent from the same period last year and also the largest increase for the same period in 25 years, the agency said.
DGBAS Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) told state-run Central News Agency that the rise reflected the impact of minimum wage hikes and company-led pay raises.
Alongside those numbers, the overall wage (including overtime, bonuses and other commissions) grew 3.67 percent and the median wage rose 2.87 percent to NT$38,264 during the nine months compared with a year earlier, it said.
However, the share of workers' wages below the average wage climbed to a record high of 69.77 percent in the first nine months, the agency said, as it reflected the effect of high-income earners pulling the average upward.
After adjustments for consumer inflation, which increased 1.77 percent annually in the first nine months, the real average regular wage rose 1.21 percent year-on-year, which was the largest increase for the same period in five years, the agency said.
Over the same period, the real overall wage grew 1.87 percent, the biggest growth in seven years, and the real median wage was up 1.08 percent from a year earlier, it added.
By industry, the highest-paying sectors in the first nine months in terms of median wage were finance and insurance at NT$57,822 per month on average, followed by publishing, audiovisual and information services at NT$53,384, electronic components manufacturing at NT$46,838, and manufacturing in general at NT$36,665, the agency said.
At the lower end, accommodation and food services averaged NT$31,563, and support services which employ a high proportion of atypical workforce — those such as part-time workers, independent contractors and other irregular types of labors — averaged NT$32,653 during the nine months, both below the overall average, it said.
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