Hong Kong urged to review migrant labour policy as sectors open to scheme see rising unemployment
Hong Kong Free Press
The Hong Kong government has been urged to consider suspending a migrant worker scheme a year after it was expanded to more job sectors.
Six members of the Labour Advisory Board, a non-statutory body that advises authorities on labour issues, urged the labour and welfare chief Chris Sun to introduce a mechanism that would allow the suspension of non-local labour schemes during a meeting on Thursday afternoon.
Jenny Tam, one of the labour policy advisors, told the press after the meeting that there had been a rise in local unemployment rates in industries that allow hires from outside the city, while a large number of migrant workers had arrived in the city over the past year.
“The workers we know can’t even find a job in the fourth quarter this year, which is supposed to be a peak season,” Tam said in Cantonese, adding that those who had managed to secure work had seen wages fall.
While Hong Kong used to recruit between 3,000 and 5,000 non-local workers a year, now thousands of migrant workers were being hired per month.
Tam, who is also the vice president of the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Unions, said more local workers would probably lose their jobs in the first quarter of 2025, was business was usually slow after the Lunar New Year.
Local unemployment rate increased
According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong’s general unemployment rate for the third quarter was 3 per cent, unchanged from the same period the previous year.
However, the unemployment rates in the retail, accommodation and food services sectors rose from 3.7 per cent in the third quarter of last year to 4.7 per cent in the third quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, unemployment in the construction industry went from 3.9 per cent to 4.4 per cent over the past year.
The government increased the quota of non-local staff that could be hired in the construction and transport industries, and in residential care homes, last June.
Separately, last September, it started allowing migrants to be recruited for 26 jobs, largely unskilled or low-skilled posts, for a two-year period. The jobs include waiters, cooks, sales assistants, cashiers, cleaners, security guards, and receptionists.
The labour and welfare chief Sun last month said that as of September, a total of 28,828 non-local workers had been hired for those 26 jobs.
Earlier in September, the Development Bureau said it had not approved any non-local construction workers in the latest round of application after more than 120 migrant labourers complained of being cheated out of wages.
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