Taiwan had 672,000 jobless citizens in August 2009, representing a record unemployment rate of 6.13%, which rose by 0.06 percentage point on month and by 1.99 percentage points on year, according to statistics released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on September 22.
Taiwan's population aged 15 and over stood at 18.882 million in August, consisting of 10.957 million in the labor force and 7.925 million in the non-labor force, DGBAS indicated. The labor participation rate in August stood at 58.03%.
In August, Taiwan's unemployment rate was lower than 9.7% for the US, 8.7% for Canada, 8.3% for Germany and 7.9% for the UK, but higher than 5.7% for Japan, 5.4% for Hong Kong, 3.8% for South Korea and 3.3% for Singapore, DGBAS said.
| DGBAS: Taiwan unemployment rate by age group, August 2009 | ||
| Age group | Labor participation rate | Unemployment rate |
| 15-24 | 29.03% | 15.77% |
| 25-44 | 84.43% | 6.19% |
| 45-64 | 60.20% | 3.94% |
Source: DGBAS, compiled by Digitimes, September 2009
