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LCQ14: Statistics on employees and self-employed persons
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     Following is a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Dr Law Chi-kwong, in the Legislative Council today (November 8):
 
Question:
 
     The Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57) stipulates that where at any time an employee has been employed under a contract of employment during the period of four or more weeks (no week shall count unless the employee has worked for 18 hours or more in that week) next preceding such time, he shall be deemed to have been in continuous employment during that period.  Employees not in continuous employment are transient workers in general.  Regarding the statistics on these two types of employees and self-employed persons, will the Government inform this Council of:
 
(1) the respective numbers of (i) employees in continuous employment, (ii) employees not in continuous employment and (iii) self-employed persons, in each of the past three years, together with a tabulated breakdown by industry and average number of hours worked per week (i.e. below 18 hours, 18 to 29 hours, 30 to 39 hours, 40 to 44 hours and over 44 hours); and
 
(2) the respective numbers of employees and self-employed persons (i) who were employed for less than three months each time, and (ii) who worked for less than 18 hours per week, in each of the past three years, together with a tabulated breakdown by their characteristics as follows:
(a) the trade in which they were engaged;
(b) job position;
(c) the main capacity apart from the employment (e.g. a family carer or a student);
(d) physical condition (i.e. able-bodied or with disabilities);
(e) status on receipt of social welfare (e.g. currently receiving Disability Allowance, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, Old Age Living Allowance or Old Age Allowance, or not receiving any social welfare allowances);
(f) type of accommodation (i.e. public housing, private rental accommodation, self-owned property, etc.);
(g) education level (i.e. primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, post-secondary or university graduate or above); and
(h) age group to which they belonged (i.e. 15 to 18, 19 to 24, 25 to 44, 45 to 64, 65 or above)?

Reply:
 
President,

     The consolidated reply to Member's question is as follows:

     The Labour Department commissioned the Census and Statistics Department to complete and publish the Special Topics Report No. 55 in 2011.  The Report was based on a special enquiry conducted, via the General Household Survey in the fourth quarter of 2009 on employees engaged under employment contracts with short duration or short working hours.  The Report came up with numbers and characteristics of employees engaged under continuous contracts and non-continuous contracts, such as information on their distribution and proportion in the labour market, as well as the industries and occupations to which they belonged.  Since the publication of the Report in 2011, the Labour Department has not conducted follow-up enquiry in the series and hence is unable to provide updated information for 2014 to 2016.  Nevertheless, the Labour Department will actively consider working with the Census and Statistics Department to arrange another round of special enquiry of the series soon so as to obtain updated information on employees engaged under continuous contracts and non-continuous contracts.

     Based on the Special Topics Report No. 55 published in 2011, the numbers of employees by industry employed under a continuous contract and with "short duration or working hours" are shown in Table 1.  

     In respect of self-employed persons, according to the information collected under the General Household Survey, figures on the number of self-employed persons by industry and weekly hours of work from 2014 to 2016 are shown in Table 2.  Their number by industry, occupation, whether studying, type of housing, education level and age group from 2014 to 2016 are shown in Table 3.  Figures on the number of self-employed persons by physical condition and status on receipt of social welfare are not available.
 
Ends/Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Issued at HKT 17:30
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