Electronics makers lead hiring boom in Taiwan & China

Analysts expect the unemployment rate to have fallen again last month as companies in the high-tech sector hire people to satisfy demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's biggest supplier of made-to-order chips, plans to hire almost 3,000 people this year in Taiwan. AU Optronics Corp is recruiting 1,500 workers, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd wants to hire 2,000."We're adding new production lines," said James Wu, chief financial officer of Chunghwa Picture, Taiwan's No. 3 maker of flat-panel displays. "More and more uses are being found for our displays." The nation's unemployment rate probably fell to 4.6 percent last month from 4.7 percent in November, seasonally adjusted, according to the median forecast of five economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The rate may drop to 4.1 percent by the end of this year, the survey showed. Last month's jobless report is scheduled for release at 4pm today.Taiwan's electronics makers are expanding to meet surging demand in China, where factory production is growing at a record pace and per capita disposable incomes in towns and cities last year topped US$1,000 for the first time. That's helping to create jobs and revive growth in an economy that suffered its worst recession on record in 2001."We've been holding a lot of mass recruitment fairs since the end of last year, and we expect to hold more," said Tzeng Jin-hao, a spokesman for Taiwan Semiconductor. Electronics exports account for more than a fifth of Taiwan's overseas sales, which in turn contribute about half of GDP. Total exports rose 21 percent to a record US$14 billion last month and electronics shipments grew 33 percent. Shipments to China, which account for about a third of overseas sales, jumped 33 percent.The statistics bureau predicts rising exports will help economic growth accelerate to 4.1 percent this year from an estimated 3.2 percent last year."The economic outlook for this year is optimistic," said Maxwell Chen, a fund manager at Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, which oversees about NT$79 billion (US$2.3 billion) of mutual funds in Taipei. "There are also signs domestic spending is rising, and companies are expanding," Chen said.The number of jobs listed by the country's biggest online recruiter, 104 Corp, rose 62 percent from a year earlier in December and increased about 2 percent from November. Unemployment fell by 20,000 in November to 477,000, official figures showed.Electronics makers aren't the only companies hiring. Fu Sheng Industrial Co, the world's No. 1 maker of golf-club heads, plans to add as many as 150 research and marketing employees to its staff of 1,790, said Hsiao Chia-shih, vice president of finance at the Taipei-based company. Fu Sheng's customers include Callaway, TaylorMade and Mizuno.Local companies are still expanding in China, having increased investment there by about a fifth to US$4.59 billion last year, the Investment Commission said earlier this month.Makers of notebook computers and other information technology hardware located 79 percent of their production overseas last year, up from 64 percent the previous year, and about two-thirds of this was in China, the commission said. Source: Taipei Times