Regional Variation of Industrial Development in Taiwan
This may imply that the Central region had
more small-sized, labor-intensive manufacturing than
other regions. It is notable that earnings per person
in the North and South regions were above the average
throughout, but neither region occupied the top rank
throughout.
(Table 5 and Figure 5 here)
It is remarkable that
earnings per person in the East region jumped to become
the highest in 1996. If we look into the original
data, we can see that this leap came from Hualien
County, which had on the average, earnings of NT$421,378
per person that year. (The 1996 Census, Vol.3: 318)
Why was this so?
With
statistics from the census of 1991 and 1996 (Vol.
3: 414-437; Vol. 3: 350-375) we see that five industries
in Hualien increased in the number of establishments.
These industries were petroleum and coal products
(from 7 to 11), plastic products (from 6 to 8), basic
metal products (from 11 to 14), fabricated metal products
(from 172 to 206), and machinery and equipment (from
43 to 49). Although data of earning in each industry
is not available with breakdowns by county level,
earnings per person in petroleum and coal products
was NT$892,317 and in basic metal products was NT$440,583,
much higher than the average. (The 1996 Census, Vol.
3: 332, 334). Thus, we may guess that the jump in
the earnings per person in Hualien came mainly from
the increase in petroleum and basic metal manufacturing.
As for the growth rate
of earnings per person, in general, it grew until
1991 and the rate was faster in 1976 and 1981, but
there was a 60 percent decline between 1991 and 1996.
The regional difference in the growth rate was rather
negligible.
A comparison of labor
productivity and capital productivity can also be
made with the available data based on enterprise units,
instead o establishment units. Labor productivity
is calculated as annual production value per person
(total production value produced per NT$ of value
assets operating at the end of the year (total production
value/total value of assets). The data are adjusted
with the whole sale price index by taking 1996 as
a base year. The results are listed in Table 6 and
depicted in Figures 6.1 and 6.2.
The North region had
the highest labor productivity, except in 1971 when
the South was higher than the North by a small margin.
The central region had the lowest labor productivity,
as was the case of earnings per capita. On the whole,
labor productivity increased almost 600 percent between
1966 and 1996.
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