Taipei: Airline pilots remained the highest-paid occupation in Taiwan last year, according to the Ministry of Labor's (MOL) latest occupational wage survey released Friday. The survey revealed that airline pilots earned a monthly salary of NT$298,000 (US$9,500), surpassing certified actuaries who earned NT$203,000, and physicians with NT$180,000.
According to Focus Taiwan, professional athletes and ship supervisors, including harbor pilots, ranked fourth and fifth with monthly salaries of NT$160,000 and NT$145,000 respectively. Telecommunications engineers, lawyers, securities and financial traders and brokers, including financial advisers and underwriters, statisticians, and financial investment analysts rounded out the top ten, with monthly wages ranging from NT$78,000 to NT$97,000.
Deputy Labor Minister Lee Chien-hung noted that salary levels across industries are influenced by factors such as job risk, specialized skills, and labor market scarcity. He added that the top 10 wage rankings have remained largely unchanged in recent years.
The survey also indicated significant wage growth in occupations with more than 5,000 employees. Insurance agents, funeral service workers, travel consultants, and hairdressing and beauty professionals saw annual monthly wage growth of over 7 percent. These were followed by aircraft maintenance workers, security guards, pet groomers, animal caretakers, childcare workers, beverage store workers, and scooter delivery riders.
Lee explained that aside from aircraft maintenance workers and insurance agents, most of these occupations are relatively low-paid. The stronger growth in monthly wages may be attributed to successive minimum wage increases and labor shortages that have driven up hiring pay.
Jasmine Mei, head of the ministry's Department of Statistics, mentioned that some occupations recorded declines in annual monthly wage growth, including real estate agents and securities and financial traders and brokers, at 8.9 percent and 5.2 percent respectively. Mei noted that salaries in these two industries are largely bonus-based, with their annual salaries rising by 17.1 percent and 9.8 percent respectively in 2024.
The MOL conducts an annual survey on occupational wages, covering the number of full-time employees in each occupation, regular monthly wages in July, and average annual earnings per capita over the previous year.