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Following is a question by the Hon Ip Wai-ming and a reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (December 1):
Question :
Some members of the labour sector have pointed out that, at present, it is very common for employees in Hong Kong to undertake overtime work without compensation, and this situation has even spread to various sectors and industries; and with the implementation of the Minimum Wage Ordinance, it is believed that this problem will aggravate. As it is stated in the 2010-2011 Policy Address that the Government will embark on a policy study on standard working hours, various sectors of the community have expressed concern about and attached importance to the matter. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether the authorities have conducted any investigation, statistical survey or study on the working hours of local employees in the past three years to find out the average daily working hours of employees in various industries and hours of overtime work without compensation, etc; if they have, of a breakdown of the average daily working hours and hours of overtime work performed without compensation in various industries by industry section according to the results of the investigation, statistical survey or study; if not, whether the authorities will expeditiously carry out such investigation, statistical survey or study so as to obtain more data as soon as possible;
(b) given that the Secretary for Labour and Welfare had mentioned at the meeting of the Legislative Council on October 29 this year that its policy study on standard working hours would be conducted at three levels: first, to find out more about overseas experience; second, to collect data on the labour force distribution in Hong Kong and the hours of work in different industries and trades; third, to communicate with stakeholders, of the timetable, specific arrangements and details of the study to be conducted by the authorities at these three levels; and
(c) of the estimated number of people required to be specifically tasked to handle the study on standard working hours; whether the Government will consider setting up a task force, inviting the participation of academics and the stakeholders concerned, and conducting public consultation on the introduction of legislation for standard working hours; if they will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and whether the authorities will regularly report to this Council and the Labour Advisory Board on the progress in the course of the study, so that the public and the labour sector can be kept informed of the progress of the study and give their views?
Reply:
President,
It is the Administration's established policy to progressively improve employees' rights and benefits in a way that strikes a reasonable balance between employers' and employees' interests and which is commensurate with the pace of Hong Kong's socio-economic development.
Standard working hours is a complex issue. At present, employers, employees and various sectors of the community have divergent views on whether standard working hours should be introduced in Hong Kong. As the issue would have far-reaching implications for Hong Kong's society and economy, we must be prudent. The Chief Executive has already undertaken in his Policy Address that the Administration would embark on a policy study on the issue.
My reply to the three parts of the question raised by the Hon Ip Wai-ming is set out below:
(a) The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) conducted a special enquiry on "Patterns of hours of work of employees" through the General Household Survey during April to June 2006 and January to June 2008 respectively. The enquiry collected information on the contractual hours of work in respect of employees working in the non-government sector, and the average hours of work as well as the average hours of overtime work performed by these employees during the seven days before enumeration. The findings from the two enquiries showed that the overall average hours of work had decreased slightly. The average hours of work and the average hours of paid and unpaid overtime work of employees in the non-government sector during the seven days before enumeration are at Table 1 and Table 2.
The above surveys conducted by C&SD provide us with a brief understanding of the working hours situation of employees in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, as the surveys were not conducted for the purpose of studying standard working hours, some statistics necessary for the study [eg. actual hours of work analysed by employees' monthly income, detailed information on hours of work of individual industries (in particular small and medium enterprises) and occupations, change in employees' pattern of hours of work after the implementation of statutory minimum wage, etc] were not available. As such, we need to discuss with C&SD and the Economic Analysis and Business Facilitation Unit on how to further collect necessary statistics to better support the basis of the study.
(b) The study will proceed on multiple fronts. First, we will study the experience of other places in implementing standard working hours or regulating working hours. Second, as stated in part (a) of the reply, we need to conduct in-depth analyses of, and collect statistics on, the current situation in Hong Kong, so as to get a good grasp of the details of hours of work of the working population and in different industries. Since the implementation of statutory minimum wage should have an impact on the labour market and working hours arrangement, we need to collect, understand and analyse these important statistics fully. Third, we will engage stakeholders, including the relevant Panel of the Legislative Council, the Labour Advisory Board, chambers of commerce, trade unions, employers' associations, labour groups and community members, etc.
As we are currently mapping out the framework of the study, we will not be able to set out the exact timetable at this stage. We understand the concerns over the issue of standard working hours and have already started the ball rolling.
(c) We will re-deploy manpower internally for the study on standard working hours. We will closely monitor the progress of the study and its workload and will re-deploy or seek additional manpower resources as appropriate.
We will maintain dialogue with stakeholders in the process of the study, consult the relevant Panel of the Legislative Council and the Labour Advisory Board, and report on the progress of the study at an appropriate time.
Ends/Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Issued at HKT 14:17
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