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Reporter: You mentioned that the unemployment rate will worsen in the next two months. How much do you expect it to worsen and when will it turn around? Do we need any additional measures to help the unemployed, especially the young people?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: The pressure obviously on unemployment in the next two months will come from youngsters, school-leavers and graduates. As I said, we've got two schemes in place already to tackle the problem, particularly to help graduates and school-leavers. One is the University Graduate Internship Programme providing 4,000 training places - 3,000 in Hong Kong and 1,000 on the mainland. At the moment, 4,400 graduates have registered already for the programme and some in fact have started their programme and training.
For the 15-19 age cohort and for those below degree level, this year we've already revamped our very well-tried programmes called the Youth Pre-Employment Training Programme and also the Youth Work Experience and Training Scheme. With amalgamated programme enhanced and revamped to ensure that any youngsters within that age cohort below sub-degree, if they join the programme, we'll make sure that they have pre-employment training programme, job attachment, and on-the-job training, in the end leading to a job if they really perform well in the job. The hope after all is to help as many students as possible, as many school-leavers as possible. We have secured funding amounting to $326 million already, providing 35,000 places for the next two years under the programme. So we are confident that together with other measures, some universities have already increased their research assistance training programmes, particularly undergraduate and sub-degree programmes. So we expect that the problem will be alleviated in a very substantial way because of our employment measures and also other opportunities in the market.
Reporter: How much do you expect it to worsen and when will it turn around?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: It's difficult to tell. But judging from the recent trend, despite the fact that the unemployment rate will continue to face upward pressure, the pace of increase is unlikely to be fast. Judging from the past trends, it is likely to be very slow, very subdued, but it's upward, because of the hire situation.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Issued at HKT 21:15
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