Opposing the expansion of labour importation (2013/11/13)

President, the unemployment rate in Hong Kong has maintained at around 3% for a long period of time, approaching full employment, and coupled with an ageing population and a low birth rate, it is an established fact that the problem of labour shortage will emerge in the future. According to reports of various sources, there have been difficulties in recruiting employees in industries with relatively poor working environment, such as construction, catering, elderly care, transportation, and so on. If improvements are not made, the development of certain industries or even Hong Kong's economy would be directly affected. Last month, the population policy consultation document released by the Government recommended consultations on the expansion of labour importation, in the hope of listening to different voices in the community and rationally exploring solutions for resolving the problem. However, some labour unions refuse to consider this issue and use the excuse of "undermining the bargaining power of local labour" to oppose the expansion of labour importation in a broad-brush manner. In my opinion, simply raising wages without studying the causes of imbalance in the labour market will not solve the problem of insufficient manpower in certain industries; on the contrary, it will only affect the competitiveness of Hong Kong in the region. 

Hong Kong has developed from a fishing village more than a century ago into a cosmopolitan city today. It is a blessed land with abundant business opportunities, and "people" is the key contributing factor, be they businessmen migrating to Hong Kong to escape wars, original inhabitants or immigrants building up their fortunes from scratch, or even imported workers. They have played different roles and have made contributions to the development of Hong Kong at different times. The incessant inflow of population creates constant business opportunities, and the constant expansion of commercial activities in turn attract more inflows of population, which is a healthy interactive relationship and one of the major factors for Hong Kong's prosperity. For this reason, blindly restricting new arrivals and opposing the expansion of labour importation will restrain the long-term economic development of Hong Kong.

President, the difficulty in recruiting employees is to a certain extent a favourable condition, proving that the market is dynamic and demanding, yet if an enterprise is unable to recruit manpower, it would affect its development and even lead to contraction. Presently, many employers understand the reasons behind, thus they pay greater attention to employees' remunerations, benefits, promotion, work environment and training, and so on, so as to maintain employees' sense of belonging to their companies, and enhance the appeal for new entrants. Similarly, employees should understand the difficulties faced by employers, and they should assist the enterprises in maintaining the vitality of development. Only when the enterprises are in a stable business condition can employees maintain their job opportunities and have development prospects. The relationship between employers and employees can be regarded as that of chicken and egg; both are indispensable.

Therefore, importing an appropriate number of workers to industries in serious shortage of labour can in fact resolve the development problem of enterprises and employees in Hong Kong. Labour importation does not only relieve the pressure on enterprises suffering from manpower shortage, but also release potential local employees as a reserve force for the development of enterprises. Employees can have more opportunities to give full play to their talents and participate in higher-level planning and management, so as to make concerted efforts to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, thus recreating more job opportunities. Hence, an appropriate expansion of labour importation will definitely not lead to antagonism with local employment; instead a virtuous cycle is generated.

In the case of elderly care industry, employees work very hard but their incomes are rather low, therefore local people, in particularly young people, are not willing to engage in the industry. A substantial pay rise to attract new entrants is not practicable as the elders or their families simply cannot afford exorbitant fees, and investors will not operate a deficit business. As a result, they can only "cross the bridge when coming to it" or try to move the business northward. If the situation is not improved, it would be unfavourable to the development of the elderly care industry in Hong Kong. According to the estimates of the industry, there is currently a shortage of approximately 5 000 workers in the elderly care sector. The population in Hong Kong is rapidly ageing, and according to government statistics, people aged 65 or above will reach 2 million by 2029, thus the demand for elderly care services will only continue to increase rather than decrease. In this case, there is much room for development in the elderly care industry as long as appropriate number of worker is imported to take up grass-roots jobs. If young people in Hong Kong are willing to learn, they have the opportunities to move up the ladder and start a business, and the number of people joining the industry will naturally increase. If the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions can abandon its prejudice and consider from the perspective of social needs, it would not be a taboo to talk about importing labour for the elderly care industry.

President, in view of the characteristics of market demand, I concur with the amendment proposed by Dr CHIANG Lai-wan to "implement the relevant arrangements for individual job types with continuous labour shortage and subject to the consensus of the Labour Advisory Board (LAB)". In order to make the arrangements for labour importation more objective and unbiased, I recommend that apart from the existing members of the LAB, several authoritative professionals or academics should be invited to join the LAB, so as to examine from different angles the importation of labour for those industries with serious labour shortage problem.

At present, the shortage of labour in certain industries is merely a beginning. It is reckoned that the problem will become increasingly serious in the future. We hope that employers and employees can positively face the problem and discuss together for solutions. The problem of labour shortage in Hong Kong can only be resolved only through mutual understanding.

President, I so submit.