LCQ9: Improving labour importation policy
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Question:
Regarding the improvement of labour importation policy, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) as it has been reported that some employers have engaged in "bogus recruitment" (e.g. rejecting suitable local job seekers after interviews on the grounds that they do not meet the requirements) in order to create the false impression of difficulties in local recruitment, so as to justify applications to the Government for labour importation, while some unscrupulous employers have exploited the imported labour they employed through various means, resulting in the issue of "cheap imported labour", and there are views pointing out that such non-compliant practices severely undermine employment opportunities for local workers, whether the Government will consider establishing a blacklist system to regularly publish information on companies involved in substantiated cases of violation of labour importation regulations (including company names, the industries to which they belong, nature and dates of violations, the labour importation schemes involved, and follow-up actions taken by the authorities), so as to enhance monitoring and increase deterrence;
(2) whether it will study the feasibility of introducing an administrative penalty system to impose heavy fines on employers who violate regulations related to imported labour (including reducing the working hours of local employees or dismissing them after recruiting imported labour) in order to enhance deterrence;
(3) as there are views pointing out that the median monthly wages for some job categories (particularly those in the catering industry) on the List of Common Posts under the current Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme are below market levels, which may bring down the wages for local workers in related job categories and even discourage employers from recruiting local workers, whether the authorities will review and refine the methodology for determining the median wage levels on the List to better align them with market levels;
(4) as there are views that local labour market statistics (including size of labour force, unemployment rate, underemployment rate and monthly employment earnings of employed persons) regularly published by the Census and Statistics Department do not process data on imported labour separately, making it difficult for such statistics to effectively reflect the impact of labour importation policy on the local labour market (including the employment and wages of local workers), whether the authorities will consider regularly compiling and publishing relevant labour market statistics that exclude the factor of imported labour; and
(5) whether the authorities will consider proactively and regularly publishing statistics on imported labour (including the numbers of applications, approvals and arrivals to Hong Kong for work, broken down by labour importation scheme, industry and job category, as well as the number and names of enterprises employing imported labour, the industries involved, and the number of local employees and imported workers), so that society can better understand the implementation of the labour importation policy?
Reply:
President,
To cope with the challenges brought by manpower shortage and on the premise of ensuring employment priority for local workers, the Government suitably allows employers to apply for importation of workers. Apart from launching sector-specific labour importation schemes for the construction sector, transport sector, and residential care homes for the elderly and residential care homes for persons with disabilities, the Labour Department (LD) has implemented the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS) since September 4, 2023 to suspend the general exclusion of the 26 job categories as well as unskilled or low-skilled posts from labour importation under the previous Supplementary Labour Scheme for two years.
In consultation with the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD), the reply to the Member's question is as follows:
(1) and (2) To safeguard employment priority for local workers, applicant employers of the ESLS must undertake a four-week local open recruitment and accord priority to employing qualified local workers to fill the job vacancies at a salary not lower than the prevailing median monthly wage of a comparable position in the market. Upon completion of the local recruitment procedures, employers shall report the results and submit recruitment advertisements to the LD for verification. The LD will contact each of the unsuccessful local job seekers to verify the interview details and confirm if the reasons for not employing the job seekers as reported by the employers are consistent with the facts and reasonable, so as to assess whether the employers have sincerity in recruiting local workers. If there is evidence showing that an employer has violated the requirements of local recruitment or refused to employ qualified local job seekers without reasonable grounds, the LD will terminate the processing of the relevant application. The LD will also impose administrative sanction on the employer and refuse to process any other application(s) submitted by the employer concerned in the following year. In parallel, employers approved to import workers are required to sign a Standard Employment Contract (SEC) with imported workers, and shall pay a salary not lower than the median monthly wage of a comparable position to prevent the imported workers from becoming "cheap labour" and undermining the employment opportunities of local workers.
Since June 17 this year, the LD has implemented a series of new measures to strengthen the protection of the employment priority for local workers, including launching an online complaint form on the ESLS dedicated webpage to enable local employees and imported workers to lodge complaints against employers for suspected breaches of the requirements of the ESLS, displaying the names of applicant companies when publishing job vacancies for local recruitment under the ESLS on the Interactive Employment Service website to increase the information transparency of local recruitment, launching a special inspection campaign to check whether establishments employing imported workers have continuously met the manning ratio requirement of full-time local employees to imported workers of 2:1, requiring employers to report information on full-time local employees and imported workers as well as the relevant manning ratios based on a risk-based approach, and refusing to process other application(s) submitted by the same employer within six months after the employer submitted an application under the ESLS. Besides, the LD launched additional measures in July to strengthen monitoring of employers' local recruitment arrangements to ensure fairness and authenticity in the local recruitment process.
The ESLS also requires employers not to displace local workers with imported workers. In the event of redundancy, imported workers should be retrenched first. If there is sufficient evidence substantiating violation of the relevant requirements, the LD will impose administrative sanction, including withdrawal of approvals for importation of labour previously granted to the employer and refusal to process applications for labour importation submitted by the employer in the following two years.
With regard to the treatment of imported workers, the Government attaches great importance to protecting their employment rights and benefits. Imported workers also enjoy the protection of labour laws in Hong Kong. The Government adopts a multi-pronged strategy, including requiring employers and imported workers to sign the SEC, requiring that wages be paid directly into imported workers' bank accounts in Hong Kong by automatic payment, conducting surprise inspections to workplaces of imported workers, and organising briefings on employment rights to ensure imported workers understand their employment rights and benefits. For cases of suspected exploitation of imported workers, the Government has set up an inter-departmental task force to follow up and investigate whether criminal elements are involved. If there is sufficient evidence, law enforcement agencies will take out prosecution. In addition, the LD launched the Imported Workers Support Scheme in January this year to strengthen support for imported workers who are suspected of being exploited, including case consultation, follow-up and guidance, as well as assisting imported workers whose employment has been terminated by their employers to arrange temporary accommodation and apply for relevant subsidies.
(3) In consultation with relevant government bureaux/ departments/ training bodies/ professional organisations and making reference to details of the applied posts commonly processed under the ESLS, the LD complies the List of Common Posts under the ESLS (including the scope of duties, academic requirements, years of experience, normal working hours per day, and median monthly wages of relevant posts). Among others, the median monthly wages are mainly determined by the C&SD's data of wages earned by relevant employed labour force in the specified survey reference month. The LD will continue to closely monitor the local labour market and relevant statistics, and continuously review the operation and implementation arrangements of the ESLS, striving to safeguard the employment priority for local workers.
(4) To reflect the latest conditions of the overall labour force (including imported workers in Hong Kong), the C&SD conducts regular sample surveys to compile and disseminate statistics on the labour force, employment, unemployment and underemployment, etc, in Hong Kong. As imported workers in Hong Kong only constitute a very small proportion of the labour force, the relevant breakdowns will have significant sampling error. Taking into account the accuracy of the statistics, it is difficult to segregate the factor of imported workers and publish the statistics separately.
(5) The Government reports regularly to the Labour Advisory Board on the implementation and relevant statistics of the labour importation schemes, and will continue to closely monitor changes in the local labour market and the manpower situation of different industries, and from time to time review the operation and implementation arrangements of the sector-specific labour importation schemes and the ESLS to ensure measures for safeguarding employment priority for local workers are implemented.
Ends/Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Issued at HKT 11:20
Issued at HKT 11:20
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