Ratio of low-paid people aged 30-34 increases in 10 years: study
The ratio of working people aged 30-40 earning a monthly wage of less than NT$30,000 (US$937) in Taiwan has increased in the 10 years from 2005 to 2014, according to a study by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).
In Taiwan, the ratio of this age group earning a monthly salary of between NT$20,000 and NT$29,999 to the same-aged working people as a whole rose from 28.6 percent in 2005 to 35 percent in 2014, the institute said Sunday.
"Apparently after a decade, the salaries of young people have not increased but have decreased," the institute said, warning of an expansion of the so-called "young working class living in poverty."
The TIER explained that its researchers made the finding while compiling and analyzing Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data and reports of manpower usage over the past 10 years.
In the working class in Taiwan, they discovered, the amount of salaries normally matches the age of their recipients, except in the 30-34 age group, the TIER said.
Moreover, the researchers also found a drop of 1-2 percentage points in terms of the ratio of the over 30-year-old working people with a monthly salary between NT$40,000 and NT$59,999 in 2014 to that in 2005.
"Those earning a relatively high wage (a monthly salary of more than NT$60,000) were normally people working as professional specialists or executive chiefs or managers in a business," the TIER said.
As for wages of people who graduated from college or university, about 25 percent earned less than NT$30,000 a month in 2014, up by nearly 3 percentage points from 2005, the study shows.
The economic research institute attributed the drops to many factors, including a growth in the percentage of the atypical employment population to the whole employment population, an excessive supply of manpower with high education, and fund and talent movements triggered by the trend of globalization.
While its study found that the growth Taiwan achieved in gross domestic product (GDP) did not help prompt real wages in the country to rise, it believes local industries have to seek an increase in the added value of their products in order to achieve stronger international competitiveness.
The higher the added value of their products, the more capable enterprises will be in raising the wages of their workers, the TIER said, calling for the government and industrial sectors to jointly promote industrial innovation and upgrade the country's industrial structure.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel