Overtime pay increased 9.01 percent in the first four months of the year, following the government’s adoption of the “one fixed day off and one flexible day off” policy, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Thursday.
The average overtime pay per month from January to April climbed to NT$1,693 from a year earlier, the agency said.
In April alone, the average overtime pay rose 5.27 percent from a year earlier and 1.54 percent from March to NT$1,719, the agency added.
The April increase followed a 10.42 percent year-on-year rise in the first quarter of the year, the agency said.
Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨), the deputy director of the agency’s census department, said that the new work hour regulations had boosted overtime pay.
The new regulations reduced the maximum number of work hours from 84 hours every two weeks to 40 hours per week with one mandatory day off and one flexible rest day per week.
Employers are required to pay overtime for work on the flexible day off.
In April, overtime work hours averaged 8.1 hours, up 0.1 hours from a month earlier, but down 0.4 hours from a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
In the first four months of the year, the average overtime work hours per month were unchanged at eight hours compared with a year earlier.
The average monthly wage in April, comprising regular salary and non-regular wages, such as overtime pay and bonuses, rose 1.83 percent year-on-year to NT$44,359, the DGBAS said.
The average non-regular wage in April stood at NT$4,533.
The average regular wage in April also rose 1.49 percent from a year earlier to NT$39,826, the DGBAS said.
In the first four months of the year — a period that includes the payment of annual bonuses — the average monthly wage stood at NT$56,833, up 2.26 percent from a year earlier.
The average regular wage per month in the four-month period rose 1.55 percent year-on-year to NT$39,662.
The number of employees in the industrial and service sectors in April rose 8,000, or 0.1 percent, from a month earlier to 7.52 million, the DGBAS said.
The number of employees in the two sectors for the four months rose 85,000, or 1.15 percent, from a year ago, the agency said.
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