University graduates this year experienced the longest gap between graduation and employment in nine years, a survey showed yesterday.
The poll conducted by jobhunting Web site yes123 showed that graduates waited an average of 2.8 months, or 84 days, following graduation before securing a full-time job.
The number was slightly higher than last year’s average of 2.7 months, as well as 2.5 months in 2019.
The online survey randomly sampled 1,188 individuals above the age of 20 who are employed full-time.
Eighty-one percent of them said they had been subject to a period of trial employment, the study showed.
Of those, 70 percent underwent a three-month trial period, 15.6 percent had a one-month trial period and 9.8 percent received a two-week assessment, it showed.
The study showed that 60.6 percent completed the trial and were offered a full-time position.
Monthly salaries for first-time employees averaged NT$30,660 this year, 0.3 percent lower than the NT$30,749 recorded last year, the survey showed.
About 47 percent said that their trial-period salaries were on average 6 percent lower than full-time pay, at NT$28,804, while 53 percent of those who passed their trial period said that employers did not raise their salaries following their promotion to full-time positions, it showed.
The survey also sampled companies registered with the site, showing that the resignation rate of new employees was about 31 percent.
The top five reasons for resignation were employment responsibilities differing from expectations, parents disapproving of the occupation, inability to handle the designated workload, employers not providing growth opportunities and personal goals not being aligned with those of the company.
The survey was conducted between Oct. 6 and Monday last week.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS