Taiwan had 491,000 jobless citizens in September 2012, equivalent to an unemployment rate of 4.32%, which fell by 0.08 percentage point on month but rose by 0.04 percentage point on year, according to statistics released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on October 22.
Taiwan's population aged 15 and older stood at 19.471 million in September, consisting of 11.369 million for labor force and 8.102 million for non-labor force with a labor participation rate of 58.39%, DGBAS indicated.
In September, Taiwan's unemployment rate was lower than the 7.9% in the UK, 7.8% in the US, 7.4% in Canada, 6.5% in Germany but higher than the 4.2% in Japan, 3.3% in Hong Kong, 3.1% in South Korea and 2.0% in Singapore, DGBAS said.
| DGBAS: Taiwan unemployment rate by age group, September 2012 | ||
| Age group | Labor participation rate | Unemployment rate |
| 15-24 | 29.64% | 13.57% |
| 25-44 | 86.28% | 4.44% |
| 45-64 | 60.46% | 2.21% |