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Following is the transcript (English portion) of a media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, on the latest unemployment rate this afternoon (January 18) at the ground floor lobby of West Wing, Central Government Offices:

Financial Secretary: The latest unemployment rate is 6.5%, a 0.2% decrease from the previous quarter. We're running on a rolling quarterly basis, but announced monthly. The underemployment rate also went down by 0.1% to 3.1%. It is a fairly significant decrease since it has been stagnant for a while, but we will remain vigilant because we are going through a structural change in our economy and the unemployment situation will remain a challenge for us.

Question: Would you say that the unemployment rate remains quite high given the economic growth in the past year?

Financial Secretary: The unemployment rate is not low enough. I will be happy when I see full employment.

Question: Would you talk a bit more about under-unemployment and the breakdowns?

Financial Secretary: Under-employment is a difficult figure to get our hands around because there are people who choose to do part-time jobs and there are those who just cannot get a full-time job and so they are stuck in a part-time job. So the under-employment rate is also a reflection of a structural change in our economy.

Question: If we are looking at structural changes and we talk about specifically the figures for low-skilled workers for example, what would the unemployment rate be for low-skilled workers? Is it higher than average?

Financial Secretary: We actually do publish these figures. It depends on how you define them - high-skilled or low-skilled. We actually break them down into age groups and also break them down into different kinds of sectors. You may wish to draw your own conclusion defining which ones are low-skilled and which ones are high-skilled.

Question: The 6.5% figure is lower than what most people are expecting, are you revising your estimate for the year-end unemployment rate?

Financial Secretary: We don't actually make any forecast as to the unemployment rate because employment is very much market driven. So we actually don't make any forecast.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Tuesday, January 18, 2005

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