Taipei, Nov. 24 (CNA) The number of employees in Taiwan earning less than NT$30,000 (US$952) a month has dropped to a record low, as the government continues its efforts to raise the minimum wage nationwide, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
A survey released Thursday by the DGBAS showed that this year, some 1.84 million employees — 19.81 percent of the workforce — were earning a monthly salary of less than NT$30,000, marking the first time that the number has dropped below 2 million in the country.
In 2022, the number of wage earners in that category was 2.11 million, making up 23.03 percent of the total workforce, according to DGBAS data.
Meanwhile, the number of workers in the NT$50,000 monthly salary bracket climbed to about 2.21 million this year, up from 2.01 million in 2022, accounting for 23.76 percent of the country’s workforce, the DGBAS said.
At a news conference Thursday, DGBAS Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said that while salaries were rising in tandem with domestic economic growth, the government’s minimum wage increases had also prompted private sector employers to raise pay. That was a major contributor to the decline in the number of people earning less than NT$30,000 a month, he said.
At the start of this year, the government raised the minimum monthly wage by 4.55 percent to NT$25,250, and hiked the hourly wage by 4.76 percent to NT$176.
According to the DGBAS, in the category of full-time workers earning less than NT$30,000 a month, the number fell this year to about 1.50 million — 16.78 percent of employees in Taiwan — down from 1.78 million in 2022.
The number of full-time workers receiving more than NT$50,000 per month rose to 2.20 million this year, which was 24.68 percent of the total number of workers, increasing from 2.01 million in 2022, according to the DGBAS.
The survey also found that the number of atypical employees — part-timer workers and those on temporary or dispatch contracts — had increased to a four-year high of 806,000 as of May this year, up 8,000 from a year earlier, accounting for 7.01 percent of the total number of employees in the country.
Chen said that as Taiwan emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic spending had increased, driving labor demand in the service sector for atypical employees.
The number of atypical workers in Taiwan had dropped to under 800,000 in the period 2020-2022, amid lower domestic consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, noting that the figure was about 819,000 in 2019.
According to Chen, some people choose atypical work because it fits in with their other obligations, like household duties.
