March unemployment falls to 15-year low in Taiwan

2015-04-24

Taiwan’s jobless rate dropped to 3.72 percent in March, its lowest level in 15 years and down 0.31 of a percentage point from 12 months earlier, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics April 22.

This was the best result for the period since 2000, with the number of unemployed falling to 431,000, down 32,000 or 6.91 percent from a year ago. Those with jobs tallied 11.16 million, up 135,000 or 1.22 percent, while the average time spent job-seeking was 24.8 weeks.

“Such encouraging numbers indicate that Taiwan’s economy is moving steadily along the road to recovery,” said Lo Yi-ling, deputy director of the DGBAS Department of Census. “As the local job market tends to further stabilize after post-Lunar New Year job switching comes to an end, we expect the jobless data to keep improving next month.”

Taiwan’s services sector is the biggest contributor to job creation, employing an additional 93,000 workers, or an increase of 1.44 percent, than a year before. It is followed by the industrial and agricultural sectors at 34,000 and 8,000, respectively.

This positive labor market sentiment is reflected in the average wages of the industrial and services sectors, which picked up 6.55 percent in the first two months of the year to NT$69,287 (US$2,227), the best on record for the period.

“After taking inflation into account, the real wage of NT$67,617 was still a record high,” Lo said, largely attributing the strong showing to the biggest average year-end bonuses in 10 years.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=229627&CtNode=413)