TAIPEI: Unemployment rose 0.08 percentage points month-on-month to 3.92 percent in June but was unchanged on a seasonally adjusted basis from a month earlier at 3.96 percent, government statistics showed Friday. The number of unemployed persons rose 10,000 to 459,000 in June, according to figures released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
Pan Ning-Hsin, a specialist at the DGBAS’s census department, said the month-on-month increase in the jobless rate largely reflected a rise in the number of first-time jobseekers in the job market during the current graduation season. Pan said Taiwan’s unemployment rate was expected to continue to climb in July and August due to an influx of first-time jobseekers, but that the jobless rate would trend lower in September after many new graduates had found jobs.
In June, the number of first-time jobseekers increased 9,000 from a month earlier, and the number of those who were unhappy with their original jobs and quit and those who lost jobs due to termination of temporary contracts rose 2,000 month-on-month, the DGBAS data showed. However, the number of those who lost their jobs due to downsizing and business closures in June fell 2,000 from a month earlier, the DGBAS’s statistics indicated. Compared with the same month a year earlier, the unemployment rate in June was up 0.21 percentage points, and the number of unemployed rose 28,000 in June, according to the DGBAS.
In June, the jobless rate in the 20-24 age group stood at 12.36 percent, up 0.46 percentage points from May, while the unemployment rate in the 25-29 age bracket fell 0.07 percentage points from a month earlier to 6.55 percent, the DGBAS said. The jobless rate among those who had a university degree or higher rose 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier to 4.79 percent in June, according to the agency. The DGBAS said 11.25 million Taiwanese were employed in June, up 4,000 or 0.04 percent from a month earlier, with the labor participation rate at 58.68 percent, up 0.05 percentage points month-on-month.
In the first six months of this year, Taiwan’s jobless rate averaged 3.89 percent, up 0.21 percentage points from a year earlier. It was the first half-year year-on-year increase in unemployment since the first six months of 2009 during the global financial crisis, when the average unemployment rate shot up to 5.73 percent from 3.87 percent a year earlier. The data signaled that Taiwan’s job market was still haunted by a weak economy, Pan said. In the first half of this year, the local labor participation rate averaged 58.66 percent, up 0.11 percentage points from a year earlier.
