The average monthly regular wage in September grew 3.22 percent from a year earlier to NT$46,643 (US$1,446), while the average total monthly wage — including overtime pay, performance-based commissions and bonuses — increased 3.41 percent to NT$56,346, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Wages improved as local firms adjusted compensation to ease a worker shortage and attract and retain talent, the agency said.
The median wage — a better gauge of typical regular pay as it is not skewed by extremes of high or low wages — stood at NT$37,290, representing an annual increase of 3.28 percent, DGBAS data showed.
Photo: CNA
That closely reflected a report by Academia Sinica’s Institute of Economics, which said the average monthly take-home pay of 80 percent of Taiwanese workers for the past three years was more than NT$30,000.
It also suggested that the monthly wage of the remaining 20 percent was close to the minimum wage of NT$27,470.
The report added that 54.7 percent of local firms raised wages three times during the three-year period and nearly 60 percent adjusted them by 5 percent.
Low pay is widely believed to be a main reason behind the worker shortage and high employee turnover rates at labor-intensive sectors.
Service providers generally have below-par monthly wages, the DGBAS said, citing data in the first nine months of the year.
The monthly wage averaged NT$34,418 at hotels and restaurants, and was slightly higher at other service providers, such as hair salons, at NT$35,766, the agency said.
Monthly regular wages averaged NT$44,187 at manufacturers and a higher NT$55,250 at local suppliers of electronic components, it said.
Hospitality facilities, non-tech manufacturers and construction firms have pressed the government to relax rules governing hiring of migrant workers to address labor problems.
The average regular wage was relatively high at financial and insurance companies at NT$56,403 per month and NT$51,398 at telecom operators and video publishers.
Seeing their business improve significantly this year, financial firms handed out better commissions and performance-based bonuses, the DGBAS said, adding that shipping companies and real-estate brokers likewise experienced a profit bump.
In September, the overall number of workers hired by the service and industrial sectors edged up 0.02 percent, or by 2,000 people, to 8.47 million, while overtime hours slid 0.2 hours from one month earlier, the agency found.
Overtime pay averaged NT$2,255, down 2.68 percent from August, as seasonal businesses linked to the summer was over. Furthermore, some manufacturers cut capacity to save on operating costs.
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