Motion of Thanks - Poverty Alleviation,  Welfare, Population Policy, Education and Manpower (31/01/2013)

According to a survey conducted by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the number of incoming visitors last year increased 16% as compared to the year 2011. The number of tourists visiting Hong Kong has had a double digit growth in the last few years. As the number of visitors continues to rise, the community begins to be concerned whether the tourism industry is able to cope with the strain thus created. At the Question and Answer Session on the Policy Address, the Chief Executive also mentioned that he would study the sustainable development of the tourism industry with priority given to issues relating to tourist spots, shopping districts as well as the capacity of the hotels.

It is generally considered that in order to ease the pressure on receiving an influx of tourists, the most direct way is to enhance the various tourist facilities, including developing more tourist attractions and increasing the supply of hotel rooms. The Chief Executive said that in increasing various tourist supporting facilities, one has to consider other factors such as city planning and land development. I wish to point out that regarding the receiving capability of the tourism industry, apart from hardware problems, we also need to address software problems. The enhancement of software of the service industry mainly involves manpower but at present, many industries in Hong Kong are plagued by manpower shortage. All tourism-related industries, including food, accommodation, transport, entertainment, tours and shopping, are faced with difficulties in staff recruitment. 

Take "food" for an example. The total revenue of all food premises in the first quarter of last year reached $23.4 billion, an increase of 6% as compared to the same period in 2011. On the other hand, as at the first quarter of last year, about 216 000 workers were engaged in the catering industry, a reduction of 11 000 as compared with the same period in 2011. During the same period, the unemployment rate in the catering industry was 4.9%, which was higher than the overall unemployment rate of 3.4%. When the economy is booming, there is a keener demand for labour but the statistics show that the situation of the catering industry is moving in the opposite direction. There is the phenomenon where "some people are unemployed while some jobs vacancies remain unfilled". 

The retail and hotel industries are two industries closely related to tourism in the areas of "accommodation" and "shopping". These industries are also faced with an acute shortage of manpower. The data provided by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) show that the manpower demand of these two major tourism-related industries has been on the rise for the past eight years, with an increase between 9% and 22%. There are currently over 10 000 job vacancies in these two industries urgently awaiting to be filled but there is no sign of the strain being eased. 

There is a labour shortage in the areas of "food", "accommodation" and "shopping", and the situation of "transport" is also bleak. Coaches are the main means of transport for the tourism service; and coach drivers, like workers in any other service industries, have to work long hours and they even have to work on public holidays. The work pressure is very great. Hence, even though their monthly pay and other benefits amount to some $20,000, few young people are attracted to this trade. As a result, this trade is also troubled by problems such as ageing workers and a lack of new blood. To my understanding, some coach companies are faced with a severe shortage of labour, such that some 20% of their vehicles are grounded because of the lack of drivers, which indirectly leads to the short supply of coaches and an increase in rents. 

"Entertainment" in the tourism industry refers to performance and entertainment. According to the C&SD statistics, there are also as many as 6 500 vacancies in the service industries involving artistic entertainment and recreation, an increase as high as 39% as compared with those in 2011. 

There over 1 600 travel agencies in Hong Kong providing various forms of tourism-related services and most of them are small and medium enterprises. The main features of this industry are flexible working hours, demand for high standard of services and unstable income, and hence difficulties in staff recruitment is also very common in this industry. Many owners of travel agencies have to take up specific operation in order to gain a small profit. They want to expand their business but are unable to recruit employees. After the implementation of minimum wage, the difficulties in staff recruitment are more acute, with a higher wastage of workers. 

President, as we can see, with an ageing population in Hong Kong, the low employment rate, coupled with the minimum wage and job mismatch in the labour market, the situation where "some people are unemployed while some jobs vacancies remain unfilled" is no longer an isolated incident, and this has directly affected the various tourism-related trades and industries. Even if the Government is willing to inject more resources to enhance the hardware, without sufficient workers joining the industries, it will be difficult to increase the receiving capability of the local tourism industry and sustain its continuous development. Capping the growth of the number of tourists because of our worries about the receiving capacity of the tourism industry is a negative approach which only treats the symptoms but not the disease. The Government should squarely address these problems and actively expand the source of manpower, especially by attracting young workers to join the tourism-related industries. 

In fact, the local unemployment rate has been hovering at the level of 3.3% with about 117 000 unemployed people. As the unemployment rate of young people has constantly exceeded the overall unemployment rate, the community is deeply concerned. The number of young unemployed people between the age of 15 and 29 reached 54 100 in the third quarter of last year, an increase of 5 900 from the second quarter, an indication that the situation was worsening. If we can attract them to join the industry, they will become the new force of the service industry, which will also help to stabilize society. The Government should allocate more resources to improve the current funding arrangements regarding the individuals and enterprises, step up training and organize publicity campaigns targeting the features of the industry, so as to boost young people's interest in the tourism industry and their confidence in its prospects, thereby attracting more young people to join the industry and bring in new force. If the condition of staff recruitment has not improved, the Government should consider allowing some trades and industries to import labour. 

President, I agree that we need to care about labour protection and it is necessary to introduce the minimum wage in this regard, but it is also an indisputable fact that it has given rise to job mismatch. In comparison, the impact of standard working hours will be even more far-reaching as it may lead to an even higher wastage of workers in the service industry, making it even more difficult to recruit workers and indirectly hampering the development of the tourism industry. It is proposed in the Policy Address to set up a Special Committee on Standard Working Hours in the first quarter of this year. I hope that the Committee will take on board a wide range of views from all sectors in its discussions and collect useful data for reference. Meanwhile, both employers and employees should adopt an objective and open attitude, and put forward, from the perspective of the overall interest of Hong Kong, more practical measures, so as to strike a balance between the interests of enterprises and workers, and work together to enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness in the region.

President, I so submit.