More than half of Taiwan's office workers were pessimistic about Taiwan's investment climate despite the recovering economy, a local poll showed Friday. Asked if they were optimistic about the investment climate in the short term, 59 percent of white-collar workers surveyed by the Taipei-based 1111 Job Bank responded negatively. Similarly, 52 percent of respondents said they did not have improved willingness to invest in the near term. Given that Taiwan's economy had posted a second double-digit quarterly growth in a row this year -- 13.71 percent in the first quarter and 12.53 percent in the second quarter ending June 30 -- Henry Ho, the online employment agent's public relations director, blamed the pessimism on a lack of wage increases. 'Although it is generally believed that the business climate has improved a lot, many local wage earners have not enjoyed a pay raise and are not that optimistic as a result,' he told reporters. Ho said that 39 percent of office workers polled said they had not received a pay raise in at least three years. Of the 47 percent who had seen their wages grow over the same period, three-fifths had received pay raises of less than 5 percent, he added. The poll also showed that 31 percent of people surveyed said their annual wage level had not yet returned to the 2008 level when the global financial crisis hit, with another 44 percent saying they now earn as much as they did in 2008 If other sources of income were included, however, 56 percent of respondents said their annual income was yet to return to its pre-crisis level. Twenty-nine percent of workers polled admitted to additional sources of income. The poll indicated that 89 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with their current annual income. Regarding the lack of wage increases, Peter Wu, director of human resources at realtor Evertrust Rehouse Group, told reporters that the recent increase in company profits did not necessarily lead to employees' pay raises as companies also had to take costs into consideration. Using his own company as an example, Wu said that Evertrust focused on employees' welfare instead by investing more in training, company tours and annual bonuses. 