www.ChinaPost.com.tw


Average pay saw record 8.54% drop

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The China Post news staff


TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The average monthly pay received by employees in Taiwan in the first four months of the year declined 8.54 percent from a year earlier to NT$47,107, representing the largest drop of its kind since the government's compilation of the data in 1980, according to tallies released yesterday by the Cabinet-level Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

The regular monthly pay also witnessed a record annual decline of 3.04 percent to reach NT$35,488 during the same four-month period.

The average monthly pay refers to regular monthly pay, extra pay for overtime work, and other non-regular income including performance bonus, year-end bonus, dividends for employees, while regular monthly pay includes basic monthly salary, monthly allowance and praises.

After taking into account an annual decline of 0.12 percent in the consumer price index for the January-April period, the substantive average monthly pay for the period saw an annual shrinkage of 8.42 percent, also the biggest decrease of its kind ever seen.

Meanwhile, the substantive regular monthly pay posted an annual slip of 3.04 percent in the first four months, also a record drop.

Huang Chien-chung, a deputy division chief at the DGBAS, told a press conference, that because of the economic downturn and the business shrinkage of enterprises, the nominal regular monthly pay has declined by over 2 percent for six consecutive months, starting from November 2008 to April 2009.

Copyright © 1999 – 2009 The China Post.
Back to Story