Taiwan's unemployment rate up in February

TAIPEI - Taiwan's unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent in February under the influence of lunar Chinese New Year, the island's statistics agency said Thursday.

The jobless rate last month was 0.07 percentage point higher than in January, according to the agency.

There were around 438,000 unemployed people in Taiwan in February, 8,000 more than January, mainly due to the end of seasonal or temporary contracts around the Chinese New Year, which fell on Feb 16 this year.

In terms of age, the unemployment rate of the 20-24 age group was the highest at 11.89 percent, followed by the 15-19 age group at 8.10 percent.

On the same day, a separate survey report released by job-seeking website yes123 found 75.9 percent of the employed are considering changing jobs in the second quarter, with over half complaining about their low salary.