COST OF LIVING/Average starting salary for new graduates up US$30 in 2023: MOL

Taipei, April 30 (CNA) The nominal starting salary for people on their first job averaged NT$35,000 per month last year, up 2.9 percent, or NT$1,000 (US$30.7), year-over-year, according to data published Tuesday by the Ministry of Labor (MOL).

By educational background, people with a bachelor's degree who were on their first job averaged a starting salary of NT$33,000 a month, while those who had a master's degree were offered significantly more at NT$49,000 a month.

Meanwhile, median starting salaries for non-university graduates, university graduates and master's degree recipients on their first job were NT$30,000, NT$31,000, and NT$47,000, respectively, the MOL said.

The figures were based on monthly employer copayments made to the pension funds under the Labor Pension and Civil Servant and Teacher Insurance systems, according to the MOL.

Notably, the MOL data did not take the consumer price index (CPI) into account, which rose 2.5 percent in 2023, the second highest increase in 15 years after a 2.95 percent hike in 2022.

According to data released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics in February, the real monthly wage in 2023 after inflation averaged NT$41,334 a month per person, a year-over-year decrease of 0.05 percent.

Real monthly earnings (including bonuses) averaged NT$53,189 per person, down 1.04 percent from 2022, the first annual decline in seven years.

For university graduates, those who got jobs in the medical, health care, or social welfare fields had the highest starting monthly salary of NT$38,000, followed by education at NT$37,000, and the financial services sector at NT$36,000, the data showed.

The highest starting salary for people with a master's degree working their first jobs was NT$57,000, and it came in the information and communications technology (ICT) and technology sectors.

That was followed by a monthly salary of NT$55,000 in the engineering and construction sectors, the data showed.

The MOL said the gap in starting salaries between men and women on their first jobs had narrowed last year, with women earning 92 percent of the pay of their male counterparts, up 2.3 percentage points from 2022.

The gap in first-job monthly pay between men and women was most significant among people with a master's degree at 12.9 percent, or NT$6,700, the data showed.

According to the MOL, this could have been due to the higher number of men working in the high-paying ICT and engineering sectors.

Meanwhile, 23.4 percent of people on their first jobs earned the minimum monthly wage of NT$26,400 last year, which represented a decrease of 0.7 percentage points compared with 2022, when the minimum wage was NT$25,250, the MOL said.