Taipei, June 3 (CNA) About 60 percent of employers in Taiwan are willing to hire first-time jobseekers at a time when many students will graduate and enter the job market, a survey conducted by 1111 Job Bank showed Saturday.
Citing the survey, the job bank said that 60.1 percent of the employers said that they were likely to hire first-time jobseekers this year, up from 56.6 percent in a similar survey conducted last year.
Employers who appeared interested in first-time jobseekers largely came from the service sector, education groups/government agencies, the medical care industry and the agricultural sector.
Companies which welcomed first-time jobseekers perceived them to be more cooperative and eager to learn new things, the survey showed. In addition, the companies felt these new employees would ask for lower wages, the survey indicated.
Henry Ho, vice president of 1111 Job Bank, said that the service sector tends to need a larger workforce. This was particularly true after the government implemented the new rigid work rules in December, Ho said. The rules require employers to give their employees two days off a week and to pay them overtime if they ask them to work during their time off.
Under the new regulations, the maximum number of work hours has been reduced from 84 hours per fortnight to 40 hours per week with one mandatory day off and one flexible rest day per week. That has forced employers to find extra manpower to fill staffing needs and accommodate their employees' time off schedules.
Manpower demand in the service sector has also been on the rise, making it easier for first-time jobseekers to land a job there, said Ho.
Employers who did not want to hire first-time jobseekers, however, said these freshmen in the job market did not have enough work experience. Some of the employers said that they did not have jobs suitable for first-time jobseekers, while others said their past experience of hiring first-time jobseekers was bad.
The survey also showed that the average starting salaries employers planned to offer to first-time jobseekers stood at NT$28,004 (US$930), the highest level since the job bank launched this type of survey in 2007.
The 2017 average starting salaries grew 2.75 percent from a year earlier, and the growth rate was the second highest in the past five years, only trailing the 2.87 percent growth in 2016.
The job bank said that the average starting wages for first-time jobseekers holding a vocational education degree was NT$27,073, up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, the compensation for university degree holders was NT$27,679, up 1.3 percent; and the wages for a master's degree holder was NT$29,246, up 1.35 percent.
The survey, conducted during the period of May 17-31, collected 696 questionnaires, the job bank said.
