The average starting salary of university graduates was NT$28,116 per month last year, an increase of NT$461, or 1.7 percent, from the previous year, a Ministry of Labor survey showed.
It was also the highest figure for university graduates’ first job since 1991, when the ministry started its annual survey on wages in different occupations.
The previous high was recorded in 2000, when the average starting salary for a university graduate was NT$28,016 per month.
In other words, the average monthly salary increased by NT$100 over the past 16 years.
Hu Meng-yu (胡孟瑀), head of the 95 Youth Labor Union, a non-profit organization made up of college students and academics, was cited by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) as saying that the growth in starting salaries for university graduates had failed to keep up with price inflation at McDonald’s.
As a result, real starting salaries have fallen over the past 16 years, Hu said.
A hospitality management student at a private university surnamed Wu (吳) said she was surprised to find during her internship at a hotel that a full-time employee at the hotel earned only NT$24,000 a month, the report said.
Wu said that after paying her school loan, rent, travel and food expenses, such a monthly salary would leave her with little disposable income.
The survey shows that among first-time employees across all educational levels, the average monthly salary last year was NT$26,723.
By sector, first-time employees in finance and insurance earned NT$31,025 per month on average, followed by NT$28,879 in the professional, scientific and technological sectors, and NT$23,598 in the service industry, including beauty salon and auto repair workers.
The survey was conducted in August last year covering 9,786 companies, the ministry said.
Lo Yi-ling (羅怡玲), head of the ministry’s Statistics Department, attributed the growth in entry-level wages to a recovering economy and the increase in the minimum wage.
A video allegedly featuring retired general Kao An-kuo (高安國) calling on Taiwanese military officers to surrender to China and overthrow the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has sparked outrage and calls for him to be charged with treason. The video, titled “A message to Taiwanese military officers,” allegedly shows Kao saying: “I call on commanding officers of our military troops to stand up for Chinese nationalism, to take up this duty under heaven’s mandate to save Taiwanese from oppression and terrible suffering.” Dressed in military fatigues and a beret, the lieutenant general called on officers to overthrow the “fraudulent DPP regime,”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday rejected the claim Beijing has been making about Taiwan’s status, while thanking US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman for raising concerns about Taiwan during her meeting with Chinese officials. Sherman met with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on a visit to Tianjin on Sunday and Monday, with Wang urging Washington not to infringe on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Taiwan is part of China, a fundamental fact that would never change, and China has the right to take any action needed to restrain Taiwanese independence, Wang said, urging Washington to abide
HASTY REVIEW CLAIMS: Medigen’s vaccine, which is to start phase 3 clinical trials later this year, should not have received emergency use authorization, Hau said Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) is to appeal the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) authorization of Medigen Vaccine Biologics’ COVID-19 vaccine, he said yesterday. The administration on July 19 granted Medigen emergency use authorization, even though the drugmaker had not yet completed phase 3 clinical trials. The government should not authorize the use of a vaccine that has not completed phase 3 trials, Hau said in Taipei on the sidelines of an event to distribute boxed meals with former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康). Hau said the government had politicized
ELDERLY AT RISK: Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang said 90 percent of those who died in a local outbreak were aged 60 or older Taiwan won plaudits for its successful containment of COVID-19 last year, which made its recent virus resurgence all the more surprising. Data show that it was unusually deadly, as well. While Taiwan has seen fewer than 800 COVID-19 deaths in total, 500 of them occurred last month alone, amid its biggest virus wave to date. The pathogen got through the stringent border curbs that had kept local infections at bay for most of last year, seeding an outbreak that tore through the then-largely unvaccinated elderly population. This pushed the case-fatality ratio to as high as that seen in Italy and the UK
RSS