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South China Morning Post

Employers must abide by the rules of Hong Kong's labour import scheme

Worker importation schemes help balance the supply of labour with demand. Ideally, they should preserve job opportunities for local workers ahead of imported workers; otherwise, they risk defeating their purpose. Advertisement Hong Kong's Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme is an example. The Labour Department has banned a pest control and cleaning company from importing workers for a year after it was found to have failed to offer a job to a suitable local candidate before hiring an imported worker. The scheme was introduced to address labour shortages in industries such as logistics, beauty and hospitality, allowing employers to import skilled labour up to technician level when they can show that no suitable local candidates are available. But concerns emerged about potential abuse of this provision, even before the case in question. Employers are required to conduct local recruitment exercises before applying for foreign workers, such as advertising vacancies for a specified period. However, there are concerns that employers' recruitment efforts and outreach to local workers only superficially comply with requirements. This undermines the scheme's primary goal to ensure that local talent is given fair opportunities before resorting to importing labour. Advertisement In that regard, the sanctioning of the local company is significant, given that it is the first time a business has been penalised for failing to follow the rules since the scheme was revised two years ago.