Following is a question by the Hon Chau Siu-chung and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Chris Sun, in the Legislative Council today (July 9):
 
Question:
 
     Regarding the care workers in various types of residential care homes (RCHs), will the Government inform this Council:

(1) of the number of (i) local care workers and (ii) imported care workers in all RCHs in Hong Kong in the past three years (up to the end of that year) and at present, together with a breakdown by type of RCHs (i.e. residential care homes for the elderly, residential care homes for persons with disabilities and nursing homes) and mode of operation of RCHs (i.e. (a) subvented RCHs, (b) contract RCHs, (c) non-profit-making self-financing RCHs and (d) private RCHs) (if applicable) (set out in Table 1);

Table 1    Type of RCHs:         

Mode of operation of RCHs	End of 2022			…….			At present
	(i)	(ii)	Total	(i)	(ii)	Total	(i)	(ii)	Total
(a)
……
(d)
Total

 
(2) in respect of the first to the sixth rounds of applications under the Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for Residential Care Homes (the Special Scheme), of (i) the number of applications, (ii) the number of imported care workers applied for (set out by new quotas and quotas for contract renewal), (iii) the number of approved applications, and (iv) the number of imported care workers approved (set out by new quotas and quotas for contract renewal), together with a breakdown by three types of RCHs and four types of mode of operation of RCHs (if applicable) as mentioned in (1) (set out in Table 2); and the main reasons for not approving the applications;

Table 2    Type of RCHs:              

Mode of operation of RCHs	First round			……			Sixth round
	(i)	……	(iv)	(i)	……	(iv)	(i)	……	(iv)
(a)
……
(d)
Total

(3) since the implementation of the Special Scheme, of the following information on the spot checks conducted by the authorities on applicant RCHs in accordance with the mechanism of spot checks of local recruitment records during the processing of each round of application: (i) the staffing establishment and strength of personnel conducting the spot checks, (ii) the number of RCHs which had been requested by the Social Welfare Department in its letters to submit detailed local recruitment records, and (iii) their percentage in the total number of applicant RCHs; whether the authorities had found malpractices such as RCHs being suspected of having provided false information or withheld any information during such spot checks; if so, of the details, including the number and nature of the cases, and whether the authorities had imposed administrative sanctions on or instituted prosecutions against the RCHs concerned, together with a breakdown by type of RCHs and their mode of operation;

(4) given that according to the requirements of the Special Scheme, RCHs must not displace their existing local care workers with imported care workers and they must comply with the specified ratio of local employees to imported care workers, of the number of RCHs alleged or substantiated to have breached the aforesaid requirements since the implementation of the Special Scheme, as well as the details of the relevant follow-up actions (including the number of cases in which written warnings were issued to and administrative sanctions were imposed on non-compliant RCHs), together with a breakdown by type of RCHs and their mode of operation;

(5) since the implementation of the Special Scheme, of the following information on the authorities' inspections of the workplaces and accommodations of imported care workers provided by employers in Hong Kong: (i) the staffing establishment and strength of personnel conducting the inspections, (ii) the number of inspections conducted, (iii) the number of workplaces inspected and (iv) the number of accommodations provided by employers which were inspected;

(6) since the implementation of the Special Scheme, of the respective numbers of complaints involving the exploitation of labour rights of imported care workers received by the Government (i) during the inspections mentioned in (5) and (ii) through other channels, and the main nature of such complaints; the respective numbers of administrative sanctions imposed on or prosecutions instituted against the RCHs concerned by the authorities in respect of the complaints received by ways of (i) and (ii), together with a breakdown by type of RCHs and their mode of operation; among the prosecutions instituted, the number of convicted cases and the average penalty imposed; and 

(7) as there are views pointing out that the median wage currently stipulated for imported care workers in RCHs under the Special Scheme is lower than the market level, and that the remuneration of local care workers employed by subvented RCHs is in general much higher than the median wage, resulting in less motivation for RCHs to employ local workers, whether the authorities will consider stipulating appropriate median wages for imported care workers in RCHs with different modes of operation, so as to enhance protection for local care workers concerned; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:
 
President,

     To address the manpower shortage and new manpower demand in residential care homes (RCHs), and to assist the RCH sector in enhancing their service quality, the Government, on the premise of safeguarding the employment priority for local workers, launched the Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for RCHs (the Special Scheme) in June 2023 to allow residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) and residential care homes for persons with disabilities (RCHDs) to import care workers on an appropriate scale. The Special Scheme set 7 000 importation quotas when launched, including around 4 000 care workers previously imported through the Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS), and the relevant quotas were nearly exhausted by the first half of 2024. The Government, having reviewed the demand for and supply of care workers in the sector, announced in July of the same year that the quota ceiling would be adjusted to 15 000 for RCHs to apply for by batches in the following three years.

     Our reply to the Member's questions, with consolidated information and data of the Social Welfare Department (SWD), Labour Department (LD) and Census and Statistics Department (C&SD), is as follows:

(1) to (3) The number of local and imported care workers employed by the RCHEs and the RCHDs in Hong Kong in the past three years are set out at Annex 1. The details of the first five rounds of applications and approval results under the Special Scheme are set out at Annex 2, with about 400 rejected cases mainly because the quotas available for that round of applications were exhausted, or the applications did not comply with the requirements of the Special Scheme. The sixth round of applications ended on May 6, 2025, and the SWD is processing the applications for around 500 new quotas.

     There are five staff members in the SWD designated to implement the Special Scheme, including the Social Work Officer grade, the Executive Officer grade and the Clerical grade. To safeguard job opportunities of local care workers, the SWD will conduct random checks on the "Confirmation of Local Recruitment" submitted by the RCHs that apply for joining the Special Scheme, with a view to ensuring that they have conducted local recruitment through channel(s) specified by the Director of Social Welfare but have been unsuccessful in filling the vacancies. Up to March 2025, the SWD has conducted random checks on about 300 local recruitment records of the RCHs, accounting for more than 10 per cent of the total number of applications, and found no case of RCH's intentionally or knowingly submitting inaccurate information. Nor has any RCH been imposed administrative sanction during that period of time.

(4) to (6) The LD's Labour Inspectors (LIs) inspect the workplaces of imported workers and the accommodation provided by employers in Hong Kong for imported workers. The establishment and strength of the LIs responsible for the above work is 37. In the past two years, LIs have carried out a total of 4 407 inspections relating to imported care workers (including cases under the SLS/Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS) and the Special Scheme), including 2 298 workplace inspections and 2 109 accommodation inspections. Should suspected deprivation of imported workers' rights and benefits be detected during inspection, the LD will promptly conduct follow-up investigation. Complaints received during the inspections are counted towards the overall number of complaint cases.

     Since the launch of the Special Scheme in June 2023 and up to May 2025, the LD and the SWD have received a total of 47 complaints against the RCHs suspected to have breached the law or the requirements of the Special Scheme. The complaints mainly involved wages (including wage rebates and underpayment of wages) and work arrangements. Among them, there were eight complaints received about the displacement of serving local care workers by imported care workers, of which the Government has completed investigation of seven cases and no irregularities were found. The remaining one case is still under investigation. During the same period, the LD successfully prosecuted an employer that had engaged imported care workers under the Special Scheme. The employer violated the Employees' Compensation Ordinance by failing to take out employees' compensation insurance policies and was fined $2,500 by the court. The SWD is examining the case concerned and will consider imposing administrative sanctions as appropriate.

     Since the launch of the Special Scheme, the number of complaint, prosecution and conviction cases per year are tabulated as follows:

	Year 2023 (since the launch of the Special Scheme in June)	Year 2024	Year 2025 (up to May)
Number of complaint cases against RCHs suspected to have breached the law or the requirements under the Special Scheme	0	34	13
Number of cases prosecuted for violation of the labour legislation	0	1	0
Number of cases of conviction for violation of the labour legislation	0	1	0

 
(7) The Special Scheme requires that the salary of local care workers must not be lower than those offered to imported care workers, while the salary of imported care workers must not be lower than the latest median monthly wage of care workers (Note 1) as compiled by the C&SD. The median monthly wage of care workers are compiled based on the data obtained from C&SD's Annual Earnings and Hours Survey conducted between May and June. The C&SD has been compiling statistics on the median wages of various industries based on this approach over the years. In respect of the median wage of care workers at RCHs, institutions being sampled include subvented/contract and private/self-financing RCHEs. 
 
     As subvented/contract RCHs can generally offer better remuneration packages to attract local job-seekers, the Government has stipulated that these types of RCHs should adopt a lower ratio of imported care workers when launching the Special Scheme. They are only allowed to, for every two full-time local staff employed, apply for importing one non-local care worker (i.e. 2:1) whereas private/self-financing RCHs can apply to import one non-local care worker for every full-time local employee (i.e. 1:1). Up to end June 2025, the SWD has approved a total of about 8 300 quotas (including contract renewal quotas) for the RCH sector, of which the quotas for subvented/contract RCHs accounted for about 20 per cent while those for private/self-financing RCHs accounted for nearly 80 per cent. In addition, under the Special Scheme, employers may only apply for importation of care workers if they are unable to recruit local care workers. The sector generally opined that the threshold and actual cost of applying to import care workers are not as low. Employers who are allowed to import care workers must provide accommodation for the imported care workers. If an imported care worker becomes ill or injured, regardless of whether that is work-related, his or her employer is required to offer free medical services. The meals for imported care workers, if so provided by an employer, must be free of charge. The RCHs also must pay a monthly "Employee Retraining Levy" of $400 per imported care worker.  
 
Note 1: According to the latest figure of C&SD, the median monthly wage of care workers in 2024 was $15,120 (rounding to the nearest tenth).

Ends/Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Issued at HKT 12:50

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