*******************************
Following is the question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a written reply by the Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Stephen Ip, in the Legislative Council today (November 8):
Question:
It has been reported that in order to tie in with the Wage Protection Movement for the cleansing and guarding service sectors, the employment service of the Labour Department ("LD") will, starting from this month, discontinue posting for employers the information on job vacancies in these sectors with wages lower than certain levels, i.e. the average market rates for the relevant occupations published in the Census and Statistics Department's Quarterly Report of Wages and Payroll Statistics. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) how LD determines if a job vacancy falls in the "cleansing" or "guarding" service sector;
(b) among the vacancies in various sectors received by LD in the past three months, of the number and percentage of vacancies in each sector with wages lower than the above levels;
(c) whether it has assessed if LD's above practice is unfair to workers in sectors other than those of the cleansing and guarding services; if the assessment outcome is in the negative, of the justifications for that; and
(d) whether LD will consider immediately extending this practice to vacancies in all sectors, if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
On 11 October 2006, the Chief Executive announced in his Policy Address that the Government would join hands with the business community and labour sector to launch a Wage Protection Movement (WPM) for cleansing workers and security guards. Through voluntary participation and the use of written employment contracts, employers are encouraged to pay these workers wages not lower than the relevant average market rates as published in the Census and Statistics Department's Quarterly Report of Wage and Payroll Statistics (Quarterly Report).
To tie in with the WPM, the Labour Department's (LD) employment service for vacancies for cleansing workers and security guards will only be extended to those vacancies offering wages not lower than the average market rates as published in the Quarterly Report with effect from 27 October 2006.
Generally speaking, cleansing worker vacancies include those requiring workers to be responsible for general cleaning work and cleaning lavatories, toilets and washrooms. As for security guard vacancies, they include those requiring workers to prevent unauthorised entry into building, patrol regularly to prevent violence, fire or disturbances, and provide immediate assistance in case of emergency.
The industry and occupational classification of vacancies received by LD has always been different from that of the Quarterly Report. Given this and the large number of vacancies involved (the Department received over 130,000 vacancies during July to September this year), we are not in a position to compare the wage levels of these vacancies with the information in the Quarterly Report.
The more mainstream public opinion now is that wage protection should focus on cleansing workers and security guards. To encourage employers to pay these workers the relevant market average wages, LD has made corresponding arrangement to discontinue posting for employers job vacancies for cleansing workers and security guards with wages below the market averages. Subject to the outcome of the review of the above arrangement, LD has no intention at present of extending the above arrangement to vacancies in other sectors.
Ends/Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Issued at HKT 12:30
NNNN
