Wage hikes not enough
On Wednesday last week, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics released year-end salaries data for last year.
Basic salaries — that is net of bonuses and overtime pay — on average rose by 2.26 percent to NT$41,883.
It was also the first time in 18 years that salaries have grown by more than 2 percent for two consecutive years.
Increases in orders, investment and production levels have resulted in higher profits, and businesses are sharing the proceeds of this economic growth with their workforces.
More importantly, the government’s policy of raising the minimum wage has compelled companies to raise monthly salaries.
However, average salary levels are still only a fraction of neighboring regional economies: 40 percent lower than in South Korea, and 50 percent lower than in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Although the monthly minimum wage has finally broken through the NT$22,000 level — it is set at NT$150 per hour or NT$23,100 per month — Taiwan still languishes in the bottom half of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for average yearly salary increases.
Taiwan ranks eighth from the bottom out of 29 countries, with average annual growth at 2.22 percent, compared with the OECD average of 4.2 percent.
This shows that average salaries in Taiwan are still too low.
As more Taiwanese manufacturers relocate their production lines from China, it would not be unreasonable to expect average salaries to increase by between 10 and 15 percent.
As salaries grow, this will have the knock-on affect of boosting consumer spending and helping to stimulate demand for domestic tourism.
As such, there is no need to view slightly higher salaries and higher levels of consumption with concern: In fact, it is a positive sign.
Wei Shih-chang
Yilan
Ban the cans
I haven’t seen this issue mentioned anywhere, so I would like to take this opportunity to bring it to light.
According to several US analysts, there is a high probability that COVID-19 might be fecally transferred.
As in Taiwan, many people are still in the habit of putting toilet paper in garbage cans instead of flushing.
I think now would be a good time for the government to start a campaign to ban these cans.
Most likely they are already working on it, but just in case I hope this short message will alert others.
Marc Plumb
Taipei
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
With escalating US-China competition and mutual distrust, the trend of supply chain “friend shoring” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fragmentation of the world into rival geopolitical blocs, many analysts and policymakers worry the world is retreating into a new cold war — a world of trade bifurcation, protectionism and deglobalization. The world is in a new cold war, said Robin Niblett, former director of the London-based think tank Chatham House. Niblett said he sees the US and China slowly reaching a modus vivendi, but it might take time. The two great powers appear to be “reversing carefully
RSS