By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter
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More than 70 percent of Taiwan’s employees earned less than the average regular monthly wage in the first six months of this year, a record high, as the numbers of lower-paid foreign industrial workers and part-time employees grew faster than the number of Taiwanese full-time workers, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The average regular monthly wage rose 2.88 percent from a year earlier to NT$48,981 in the first half, while 70.03 percent of employees earned less than that, the agency said. “The record-high share does not necessarily indicate that wage inequality has sharpened, as the average is being lifted by rapid wage growth among higher-paid workers and by changes in the makeup of the workforce,” DGBAS Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) said.
A person holds New Taiwan dollar notes in NT$1,000 denominations on July 20 in Taipei.
The number of foreign industrial workers rose to about 564,000 in June from 527,000 a year earlier, an increase of 37,000, while the number of part-time workers reached about 410,000, up from about 390,000 in 2021, DGBAS data showed. Because these workers generally earn less than the average wage, their growing numbers have increased the proportion of employees earning below the average, Tan said.
