The Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics has just announced July's unemployment rate, showing a slight increase by 0.04 percent from the previous month. However, on the contrary, there has been a decrease of 5,000 job vacancies according to the number released by job banks.

As the economy improves, the unemployment rates did not improve like many has predicted.

The DGBAS released its latest data regarding July unemployment rate which reached 5.2%, up 0.04% over the previous month of June.

The number of unemployed reached 578,000, which was an increase of 8,000 people over June. The unemployment rate in February this year reached a high of 5.76% later falling to 5.14% in May, and because July was graduation season, this rate rose slightly to 5.2%. The DGBAS believes that the unemployment rate this year does not see much of a gap due to the government's introduction of short-term employment programs.

Without these programs, the unemployment rate may be higher. Despite the effectiveness of short-term employment programs, job bank statistics found that of the 355,000 job vacancies posted on-line last month, there was a decrease of 5,000 from the previous month.

It was the first time the number of vacancies declined since November.

Scholars believe that the reason may be due to various industries, which in the second half may face uncertain orders as corporate employers may become more conservative. Scholars say domestic companies are seeing a leveling of job requirements as demand for college graduates has greatly reduced.

This together with the current industrial structure in Taiwan indicates there is still demand for entry level technical personnel as the government should attach more importance to technical and vocational education to allow young people to find work more easily.