Salaried employees in Taiwan have enjoyed a net salary increase rate of only 0.8 percent in 2005, ranking the bottom of a cross-border survey of 14 regions and countries in Asia, according to news reaching here from Taipei.

According to the latest study published by HR Business Solution(HRBS), of 609 salaried workers in Asia, employees in India have enjoyed a net salary increase rate of 4.5 percent this year, the highest among all their Asian neighbors.

Thai workers ranked second (4.4 percent), followed by Indonesians (4.3 percent) and South Koreans (3.8 percent). Taiwanese placed the last, even lagging behind their Vietnamese counterparts who enjoyed an increase of 1.2 percent.

The HRBS study ascribed Taiwan's poor showing to the country's relatively high inflation rate of 3.2 percent despite the fact that Taiwan workers have been given an average pay increase of 4 percent in 2005.

Source: Xinhua