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The following is the transcript (English portion) of a media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, on the latest unemployment rate this (September 16) afternoon at the West Wing Lobby, Central Government Offices:
Financial Secretary: I am pleased to see that the latest unemployment figure has shown a moderate improvement from 6.9% to 6.8%. The underemployment rate shows a slightly larger improvement from 3.5% to 3.3%. The total employment figure at 3,294,000 people is again a historical high because we are continually creating new jobs. In the past 12 months, we have created about 100,000 jobs against a bigger base, because in August last year we are already creating jobs.
Also in the Labour Department it has been increasingly active. On a daily basis, they receive about 1,200 vacancies versus about 1,000 last month. So again, this is a sign of increasing activity due to the economic recovery.
But having said all that, I'd like to point out that we are still full of challenges - 6.8% is still a very high unemployment rate, 249,000 people are still out of job and we are still very much concerned about the challenges of this economic restructuring. We will continue to work closely with the labour sector as well as facilitating the business environment so that we are able to create more jobs.
Reporter: Mr Tang, which sector improved most?
Financial Secretary: The restaurants, communications, manufacturing, amusement and recreational services, decoration and maintenance are the sectors seeing gains in employment. Those are the ones that are showing the most improvement in employment.
Reporter: Mr Tang, despite the employment growth, the labour wages still is not that high and even lower than before, so what's your reaction on that?
Financial Secretary: There is a worldwide trend that pay is becoming more performance-linked rather than simply on a base-basis, so I don't know whether these numbers reflect the actual situation, that there is a trend towards a lower basic pay, but there are more performance-linked rewards. We will still have to study it.
Reporter: Why can't the labour force enjoy the benefit of the improved economy?
Financial Secretary: Well, like what I've said, Hong Kong is a very free and open market. If a company is successful and the success of a company very much depends on the joint effort of every single staff in that company. It is not one person who makes the money. It is the whole team that makes money for a company. So every company will have to adjust its pay policy according to market forces. If they are underpaying an employee or do not share the success with the whole team, I think the employees may have the incentive to move elsewhere because our labour market is very flexible.
Reporter: So are you optimistic the unemployment rate is going to continue to drop in the coming few months?
Financial Secretary: I will not make any forecasts as to whether it will drop or how far it will drop. But I certainly hope that it will continue to drop.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, September 16, 2004
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