Taipei  - Taiwan's jobless rate rose further to a record 6.13 per cent in August as new graduates flooded the job market, the government statistics agency said Tuesday.

Some 672,000 people were unemployed in August, up 9,000 from July, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a statement.

Of the registered unemployed, 21,000 were new graduates or first-time job seekers, the agency said.

August's jobless rate was the highest since the government began recording unemployment figures in 1978. It also marked the second month the island's jobless rate had surged above 6 per cent after unemployment rate hit 6.07 per cent in July.

Compared with the same month last year, the rate rose 1.99 percentage points, the agency said.  dpa