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.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS