Taipei, July 22 (CNA) Taiwan's unemployment rate grew to 4.80 percent in June, spurred mainly by the COVID-19 situation and graduation season in the country, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said Thursday.

The unemployment rate rose 0.69 percentage points in June from a month earlier and was the highest since November 2010, the DGBAS data showed.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the entry of new graduates into the job market, the number of unemployed workers increased by 81,000 in June from a month earlier to 570,000, the DGBAS said.

After seasonal adjustments, the May unemployment rate was 4.76 percent, up 0.61 percentage points from a month earlier, the data showed.

According to the DGBAS, there were 11.301 million people employed in Taiwan in June, a decline of 97,000, or 0.85 percent, from a month earlier, as the local service sector was greatly affected by a spike in domestic COVID-19 cases that month.