Hong Kong labour group calls for review of imported worker policy amid job losses
A local labour union has urged the Hong Kong government to review its imported labour policy after a survey revealed that more than half of catering workers lost their jobs following the Lunar New Year, while the percentage of employers hiring non-local workers trebled.
The survey, jointly conducted by the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions and Federation of Hong Kong Food & Beverage Industries Trade Union between January and April this year, gathered responses from 950 workers in local food and catering services, including traditional Chinese restaurants, cha chaan tengs, noodle bars, snack bars, and Western restaurants.
It found that 52.5 per cent of the restaurant workers reported losing their jobs after the Lunar New Year, which fell on January 29 this year. Furthermore, the percentage of respondents who stated their restaurants had hired imported labour surged threefold, from 24 per cent before the festival to 72 per cent afterwards.
More than 95 per cent of respondents believed that the influx of non-local workers had negatively impacted their livelihoods, leading to situations where they were either replaced, unemployed, or only able to secure part-time positions.
'We advise the government to review the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme and consider reimplementing restrictions on the 26 job types. For those jobs and industries that had imported labour, the government should establish quotas,' said Jenny Tam Kam-lin, the vice-chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions.
She also recommended that the government monitor and penalise employers who dismissed local employees after receiving approval to hire non-local workers, or who exclusively hired local part-time workers instead of offering full-time positions.
The Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme was introduced in September 2023. It aims to address the city's manpower shortage by allowing employers to bring in an unlimited number of unskilled or low-skilled workers from mainland China for 26 new job types, including waiters, junior chefs, and hospitality and sales staff in catering.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
41 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong producer Raymond Wong to plead not guilty to insider trading
Film producer and actor Raymond Wong Pak-ming planned to plead not guilty to the alleged insider trading offences brought by Hong Kong's securities watchdog, according to his legal representative. Advertisement Wong, 79, is being prosecuted by the Securities and Futures Commission for alleged insider trading concerning shares in Transmit Entertainment, a television series production company previously known as Pegasus Entertainment Holdings. The watchdog alleges that the defendant, who was Pegasus Entertainment's chairman and controlling shareholder at the time, counselled or procured another person to deal in the company's shares between August 25 and October 17, 2017. Wong's legal representative informed Acting Principal Magistrate David Cheung Chi-wai at the Eastern Court that the defendant planned to enter a not guilty plea. The case has been adjourned until August 25 for further proceedings. The delay is to allow the defence to confirm whether they will contest the chain of custody for the WhatsApp records in question, the defendant's video conferencing, and the identity of the expert witness, as noted by Magistrate Cheung. Advertisement Cheung said that the court aimed to commence the trial on November 24, with an estimated duration of 15 days.
South China Morning Post
44 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
Philippines urged to ratify UN marine resource treaty or risk being sidelined
France is stepping up its diplomacy in Asia to gather support for a key United Nations treaty on marine resource protection, warning that any delay in its ratification could leave the Philippines and other regional countries on the sidelines of a crucial global conference next week. Advertisement Only 29 countries have ratified the landmark High Seas Treaty – also known as the Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) treaty – which requires ratifications by at least 60 countries to take effect. One of 116 signatories, the Philippines signed the treaty in 2023 but has yet to ratify it. The treaty aims to regulate and protect marine resources in international waters, which are maritime areas beyond any single country's jurisdiction. They cover nearly half the Earth's surface and sustain vital ecosystems and fishing industries across Asia. Adopted in June 2023, the treaty aims to fill governance gaps in what advocates describe as a 'lawless wilderness', where fragmented oversight has enabled overfishing, pollution and extensive deep-sea mining. Analysts say the treaty is especially relevant for developing coastal and archipelagic states in Asia, where limited resources and vast exclusive economic zones make enforcement challenging. Concerns over unclear obligations, enforcement costs and industry pushback have hindered its ratification in many countries. Advertisement At a forum held in Manila on May 28, French Ambassador Marie Fontaniel urged the Philippines to be among the first 60 countries to ratify the treaty ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice next week.
South China Morning Post
44 minutes ago
- South China Morning Post
How China could benefit from a ‘Mar-a-Lago Accord'
The provisional trade deal reached by China and the United States in Geneva last month exceeded expectations, with the two sides agreeing to roll back for 90 days most tariffs and other countermeasures they had imposed in the preceding weeks. Advertisement To be sure, a number of tariffs remain – including all those the US imposed on China during Donald Trump's first presidency – and little progress was made in resolving underlying disagreements, such as over fentanyl flows into the US. But with more talks set to take place (amid and despite accusations by both sides that the provisional agreement has been violated), a robust agreement may well be in the offing. To understand what such an agreement might look like, it is worth considering the grievances behind Trump's tariff policy. Conventional economic theory holds that, in a flexible exchange-rate system, changes in a currency's value should lead to a stable trade balance in the issuing economy. But, as experience shows, a number of factors can disrupt this dynamic. In the case of the dollar, it is very easy to pin down the main one: its status as the world's dominant reserve currency As the economist Robert Triffin explained in 1960, unless the country that provides the world's reserve currency runs a current account deficit, the world loses its largest source of liquidity for reserves, with catastrophic consequences for economic growth and stability. But the ever-expanding deficit can undermine confidence in the reserve-issuing country – what is known as the Triffin dilemma. The Trump administration's chief complaint is that permanent demand for dollars keeps the currency strong, even when the US Federal Reserve pursues very accommodative interest rate policies, as was the case for well over a decade after the 2008 global financial crisis. Given this, improving America's export competitiveness – and, thus, its trade balance – requires policy intervention. Advertisement To this end, the Trump administration has floated the idea of a ' Mar-a-Lago Accord ' inspired by the 1985 Plaza Accord, under which the five largest industrialised economies agreed to devalue the US dollar relative to the Japanese yen and the German Deutschmark. The new iteration – the brainchild of Stephen Miran , now the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers – would be negotiated at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, rather than the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
