A latest survey said on Jan. 30 that approximately 87% of employers in Taiwan, foreign and domestic, will offer year-end bonuses to their employees this year.

The poll was conducted by the 1111 Job Bank while a total of 540 employers in Taiwan participated in the questionnaire. Approximately 86.53% of them said that they have prepared related year-end bonuses to their employees and will issue them before the Lunar New Year, which will fall on Feb. 19 this year.

Statistics of the annual survey by the 1111 Job Bank showed that approximately 94.72% of employers in Taiwan said that they were offering year-end bonuses in 2006, and the figure continued to go down until this year. The job bank said that the higher percentage of those employers who are willing to offer the year-end bonuses reflected a recovery in both domestic and global economy.

Prior to the survey, the government released an advance estimate earlier, saying that that Taiwan’s GDP grew 3.51% last year, beating its previous forecast of a 3.43% increase.

Due to an improvement in earnings, the survey discovered that most employers will issue year-end bonuses equivalent to 1.34 months of monthly paychecks on average, up from 1.33 months which was seen a year earlier. The figure was a high since 2011, when the average year-end bonuses equaled 1.41 months of salary.

Quoting the survey, the job bank said that 17.4% of the employers who will issue bonuses said that their employees are expected to get higher year-end bonuses this year. In the meantime, 56% of the employers said that they will issue bonuses based on employee performances, while 31.1% of them said that they will take seniority into consideration.

Among all the various industries, the survey said, the manufacturing sector, which has got a boost from rising global demand, will offer the most amount year-end bonuses to their employees, followed by the financial sector and the services sector.

The job bank said, however, the year-end bonuses to be issued by the property development sector will lag behind these three sectors as the local housing market has been sluggish. Employees from the property sector, however, have enjoyed the fattest checks for their year-end bonuses last year, the job bank said.

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A latest survey released by the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) said on Jan. 29 that it will become more and more difficult for companies to recruit quality employees in Taiwan, due to slow wage increases.

Michael Page Salary and Employment Forecasts, an annual survey by ECCT, said that Taiwan’s job market has been underperforming if it is compared with those developed Asian economies.

The survey showed that there are many technology firms for innovation in Taiwan, and these high-tech companies continue to hire and recruit talents in fields of design, research and development, but, a serious brain drain also continued to affect Taiwan as the nation has experienced very little wage inflation during the past decades.

“Companies — in particularly high-tech companies — from China, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as other locations around the world including California, have targeted Taiwanese talent,” said Chris Preston, regional director of Michael Page Taiwan. “Because salaries in Taiwan have been stagnant in recent years, Taiwanese people who go abroad for their careers know that they will need to take a pay cut if they decide to return to Taiwan,” Preston said.

In Taiwan, 65% of surveyed employers expect to offer salary increases of between 1% and 5% in the coming year, in line with Hong Kong. In China, however, 61% of surveyed employers plan to offer salary increases of between 6% and 10%, as Chinese employers are willing to pay top paychecks to the best employees and offer more moderate pay rises for average employees, according to the survey.

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Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced on Jan. 29 that a small team for better support business will be launched in Taipei.

“Taiwan is a priority market for Facebook. We want to help local businesses, both big and small, to grow locally and regionally,” said Dan Neary, Facebook’s vice president for Asia-Pacific.

Facebook said that the small team was designed for rolling out workshops and roadshows, and targeting specifically at advertising and media agencies, small and medium-sized business, brands and developers, throughout the year. Facebook, however, did not elaborate how many employees they will recruit in Taipei office and when this office will be launched.

“We have seen small business like online seafood retailer i3fresh grow their market share and experience a three-fold increase in sales through their campaigns on Facebook. Brands like Estee Lauder (FRA: ELAA) were also able to leverage Facebook to reach specific target audience groups,” Neary said. “They ran a campaign around its Resilience Lift Diamond product in Taiwan and found the Facebook platform to be 40 times more efficient at reaching the target audience than TV.”

Jayne Leung (梁幼莓), head of Greater China for Facebook, said that the establishment for the Facebook Taiwan office will increase the level of support available to Taiwanese clients and agencies.

“We recognize the potential and opportunities that Taiwan presents and are looking forward to working closely with Taiwan businesses, partners and the government to help local businesses grow,” she said.

Taiwan’s Vice Premier Simon Chang (張善政) visited the new office privately on Thursday morning (Jan. 29) and said that in addition to the office, he is also hoping that Facebook will set up a data center in Taiwan.

“Of course I hope so. Who wouldn’t want that?” Chang said.

Chang, a former executive for Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), said that Facebook plays a crucial role in the daily lives for Taiwanese people. He said that Facebook’s Taiwan office will introduce more innovative marketing tools and business models for local e-commerce operators and help encourage young app developers in the country.

In response, Facebook said that all kinds of proposals remain possible, but no specific decision is made as of now.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said that Taiwan Facebook Ltd was established in Taipei’s Xinyi District on Dec. 24 last year, with capital of US$95,400. Leung, head of Greater China for Facebook, serves as the representative of the local branch. Facebook said in an email statement that it has a few key areas of focus in Taiwan, with the top priority being educating and helping business understand and reap the benefits of the Facebook platform. Data from Facebook indicated that there are approximately 15 million active Facebook users in Taiwan, while 13 million of them log on via mobile devices.

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According to the agency, over 800,000 employees of the USPS have had their personal data stolen from the postal service’s servers. When you consider that the USPS employs just under 500,000 people (below 800,000 in the 90’s) then you realize that the data stolen includes both current and former employees of the USPS. The data breach mostly affects employees of the USPS rather than customers who may have done business with them. They do state that the USPS’ customers that have done business with them between the months of July and August may have had their contact information lost, but no credit card or payment data was obtained by the hackers.

The USPS has a long and detailed FAQ that answers consumers questions about the data breach and whether or not their data has been compromised. The interesting thing about this breach is that it isn’t a typical breach where hackers are going after customer data or going after credit card data or passwords. The hackers in this specifically went after the employee data of the USPS and were able to gain access to what appears to be all of it. The USPS isn’t clearly saying what employee data had been stolen, but the USPS official release states that it the data stolen includes, “The employee information potentially compromised in the incident included some employee personally identifiable information (PII), such as names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses and other information including beginning and end dates of employment, and emergency contact information.”

The other huge problem with this breach is that the USPS did not communicate this breach, which occurred in mid-September until now, almost two whole months later. This would mean that the employees that got hacked have had their information out and about without their knowledge for the past two months which means anyone could have caused financial ruin for the employees of the USPS. The fact is that the American Postal Workers Union should be absolutely up in arms about this and should sue the USPS for breaching their duty to protect and properly notify their employees of such risks in a timely fashion. We’ve already gotten quite angry with retailers taking a month to tell us that our credit card numbers have been stolen, yet even more personal potentially ruining data was kept from USPS employees for nearly 2 months.

There are currently no official suspects or leads in the case, but some publications are indicating that the attack may have come from Chinese hackers.

There is one more interesting tidbit in this USPS story, and that’s the fact that the USPS has taken this event as an opportunity to take a dig at the New York Times for their piece about the USPS and their involvement in tracking Americans’ mail. Here is the question and answer, verbatim.

Q: I’m concerned about a New York Times article that mentioned “surveillance” of mail. Is this connected with the cyber-intrusion incident and what is meant by “mail covers”?

A: The New York Times article is unrelated to the cyber breach. The New York Times article titled ‘Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.’ published on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 is extremely disappointing. The article is inaccurate and unfairly presents a one-sided version of the facts. First and foremost, the United State Postal Service respects the privacy of its customers and the sanctity of the mail. Contrary to what is suggested in the article, the Postal Service does not monitor the mail behavior of its customers and it does not maintain any system or program of so-called “surveillance.” Unfortunately, and perhaps to create a news story where there is none, the New York Times article conflates three independent mail programs in order to create the wholly false impression that there is some vast mail monitoring system in operation. While such an assertion may make for a more interesting news article – it is not based on the facts. Mail covers are used for criminal investigations. The increased use of mail covers in 2013 and 2014 is connected to single packages investigated involving illegal drug shipments. Eighty percent of all mail covers in 2014 were related to these important investigations. All other mail covers have actually decreased by more than 30 percent since 2012. It is unfortunate that the New York Times presented such a distorted view of the facts. Its readership would have benefited from a more even-handed approach. The Postal Service processed and delivered 158 billion pieces of mail last year, of which only a tiny percentage was subjected to the mail cover process. The people who need to be concerned about mail covers are those who use the U.S. Mail to ship illegal drugs or who are otherwise breaking the law.

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