TAIPEI: The unemployment rate stood unchanged at 3.87 percent last month from a month earlier, as fewer people quit their jobs ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, while companies laid off temporary and seasonal employees, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The job market usually shows a decline in unemployment over the week-long holiday, DGBAS deputy section head Chang Yun-yun said, adding that this was not the case this year.
“The data show that the economic weakness started to affect the job market as it did during the global financial crisis in 2008 and Europe’s debt problems in 2012,” Chang told reporters.
The small, but gradual increase in jobless figures after seasonal adjustment affirmed the slowdown, Chang said.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate stood at 3.91 percent last month, up from December last year’s 3.88 percent, the DGBAS report said.
Compared with a year earlier, unemployment gained 0.16 percentage points due to a drop in seasonal and temporary hiring, according to the report.
Companies appeared to have felt the pinch and hired fewer temporary employees from a year earlier, a DGBAS official said.
The jobless population stood at 453,000 last month, as the number of people who lost their jobs due to business closures or downsizing increased 2,000, while people who quit their jobs dropped by 1,000, the report found.
The agency expects unemployment to rise this month and beyond, as more companies would ax temporary positions related to Lunar New Year feasts and gatherings, the official said.
The jobless rate was highest, at 11.95 percent, for the 15-to-24 age bracket and 4.06 percent for the 25-to-44 age bracket, the report said. People aged between 45 and 64 had a jobless rate of 2.09 percent, it said.
Unemployment was highest among people with university or higher degrees at 4.8 percent, followed by 4.21 percent for those with college diplomas, the report said.
The jobless rate for people with high-school education averaged 3.84 percent and dropped to 3 percent for people with lower education, the report said.
Monthly take-home pay rose 0.76 percent to NT$39,129 in December last year from one month earlier, unaffected by the softening economy, the DGBAS said in a separate survey.
