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Following is the transcript of the media session given by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, on new employment initiatives at the conference hall of the Central Government Offices (New Annex) this afternoon (June 15):
Question: Mr Tung, could you please repeat in English what you have described before? Can you may be elaborate on why there is a need now to do this? What kind of unemployment figures are you expecting this week?
Mr Tung: I am here to announce a further push to help reduce the unemployment pressure. We have decided, after really very careful consideration, to earmark $700 million to create 32,000 new jobs or training places. This plan is very focused. It focuses on middle-aged unemployed as well as the youth, the unemployed youth. This plan is not just about creating jobs, but more importantly, is about adding value to each individual who receives training so that they would have a better opportunity when they re-enter the job market in the future. This plan is also very special in that it is the joint efforts of the government as well as many non-government organisations working together.
Actually, in addition to this plan, you may or may not remember that we have on-going plans for youth which consist of Youth Pre-employment Training Programme. We also have plans for university students after graduation to enter further training before they go to the job market. Even for that youth programme, there would be 19,000 places. So that 19,000 places plus the 32,000 places I just announced, and if you add to that what FS announced on April 23, 21,000 training places and short-term employment opportunities, the total number is 73,000. It is a huge number. It is never done before. You might say that why this number. These are not normal times. We have been under the attack of SARS and we need some special ways to face this very serious problem. That is what we have done. Of course now SARS is gradually under our control and economy, as you can see, is slowly, slowly but surely recovering. Employment opportunities will begin to increase. These are transitional measures which we need to take to alleviate the short-term pains.
From a mid-term and long-term point of view, how do you create more jobs? The ultimate answer lies in revitalising our economy, and also in making successful restructuring of our economy. In that regard, much is going on and the government and the private sector are working very closely together.
The training of the young generation and creating new job opportunities generally is the responsibility of the government as well as everybody in the community. I will promise you one thing: as a government, we work very hard together to galvanise the whole community, to put forward the best effort. At this moment what we want is really to unite together and work very hard at these objectives. Thank you very much.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
End/Sunday, June 15, 2003
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