May Figures: Jobless Rate Hikes to 3.75%, While IPI Falls 3.05%

May Figures: Jobless Rate Hikes to 3.75%, While IPI Falls 3.05%

Source: China Times & CNA

June 25, 2019

The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics under the Executive Yuan (Cabinet Budget Office) yesterday made public that the unemployment rate for May remained the same as April at 3.67%. However, when adjusted for seasonal factors, the rate edged up 0.02 percentage points from 3.73% in April to 3.75%, increasing for the third consecutive month and reaching the highest figure in 22 months.

Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨), deputy director of the Cabinet Budget Office’s census department, indicated that this reflected the fact that the slowdown of economic expansion had impacted Taiwan’s labor market.

In addition, the Statistics Department under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday made public that the industrial production index (IPI) for May declined by 3.05% from a year earlier to 108.02. The index for April was 103.81, an unexpected increase of 1.04% YoY. However, owing to the impacts of the slowdown of global economic growth and a higher base period in 2018, the IPI for May declined.

Wang Shu-chuan (王淑娟), deputy director of the MOEA’s Statistics Department, indicated that the global economic slowdown and the US-China trade war impacted end demand.

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