TAIPEI (TVBS News) — As the cost of living in Taiwan continues to increase, salaries are not seeing much growth. According to statistics from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the average annual salary of workers in Taiwan in 2021 was NT＄506,000.
A total of 68% of workers in Taiwan do not meet the salary average, meaning that an estimated 5.55 million in Taiwan, have a monthly income less than NT＄42K.
And the salary gap between the highest paid 10% and the lowest 10% has widened to up to 4.09 times, which is the largest gap seen in the past six years.
Yang Chong-bin, the spokesperson at a job bank said, "The median annual salary is actually NT＄502,000. The average monthly salary is around NT＄40,000." Families living in the larger cities may need a double income for the household.
Yang explained that "a family needs to have about NT＄80,000 in total to pay for housing mortgages or raise children."
"What is more worrying is the gap between the high and low wages, which is more than four times. This is a serious situation, and the entire middle class may show a trend of sinking and disappearing," Yang added.
"So on a whole, high salaries in the gas, fuel, or the financial industry and technology industry have raised the overall average of the entire economy," he continued.
On the contrary, the total annual salary of the art, entertainment and leisure service industry, accommodation and catering industry, is less than NT＄400,000.
According to Chen Shu-lun, director-general of a labor union in Taipei, "the salary structure is getting more and more uneven, the gap between the rich and the poor. When our country is trying its best to develop, for example the semiconductor industry or these star industries, these more disadvantaged groups of industries, the wages of their industries have not been improved."
She added: "We will find that when this structure becomes more and more serious, social conflicts and contradictions will also get bigger and bigger."
As the new year begins, tens of thousands of workers across Taiwan are still struggling to find ways to advance and stand out in the job mark.