Jobless rate hits all-time high of 6%

This is also the first time that the figure has topped the six percent mark since the government began compiling jobless statistics in 1978.

Officials attributed the continuously rising jobless rate partly to new college graduates entering the labor market in the summer season.

The overall number of jobless people also hit a record high of 663,000, up 16,000 from the level registered in June, according to figures released by the Cabinet-level Directorate General of Budget, Accounting & Statistics (DGBAS).

The number of people affected by unemployment, including dependents of unemployed wage earners, was estimated at 1.399 million in July.

This represented an increase of 10,000 people from the June level, also a historical high.

The jobless rate of July marked a rise of 0.13 percentage points from the previous month and a 2.01 percent increase from the same month of last year.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for July also broke the 6 percent threshold at 6.01 percent, according to DGBAS statistics.

Heavily dependent on exports, Taiwan's economy has been battered by the global economic crisis as traditional export markets in the Western countries have dramatically cut purchases.

That has led to continuing layoffs in the export sector as more local factories closed or scaled down production.

The total of jobless people increased 117,000 between November 2008 and February 2009 and then stabilized for the next three months before rising by 30,000 in the past two months.

Liu Tien-si, a deputy department chief at the DGBAS, said the swelling jobless ranks could be attributed in part to the entry of new university graduates into the job market in July.

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