Salaries are up and the unemployment rate is down in Taiwan. The government statistics office has announced that the unemployment rate for June was 3.71%. That’s the lowest June unemployment rate in 15 years.
The June rate is affected by fresh graduates looking for jobs. If graduates aren’t taken into account, the unemployment rate would be only 3.76%.
The jobless rate for young educated people 20-24 years of age is 12.27%. The rate is 4.66% for people with college degrees or higher.
For the first half of the year, the lowest unemployment rates were in Chiayi and Hualien counties, which had a rate of 3.5%. The two counties have strong tourism industries. The highest jobless rates were in Keelung and Yilan at 3.9%.
From January to May, the average real monthly salary was NT$52,348 (US$1,678), an increase of more than 4% over last year. The average monthly wage was NT$37,489 (US$1,201) which is also a seven-year high.