Following is a question by the Hon Tam Chun-kwok and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Chris Sun, in the Legislative Council today (January 21):
 
Question:
 
     According to government data, the unemployment rates in the construction sector and the food and beverage services sector remain high and exceed the Hong Kong's overall unemployment rate. Some members of the public have relayed that there are illegal workers snatching employment opportunities in various industries by asking for low wages, and some enterprises have even abused the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS), dealing a severe blow to the livelihood of local workers. There are views that in order to ensure employment priority of local workers, the Government must play a stringent gatekeeping role in its labour importation policy, and rigorously crack down on illegal workers. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

 (1) given that in September last year, the Government launched measures targeting job categories with more imported workers under ESLS (including waiters/waitresses and junior cooks) to combat abuse of the scheme, whether the Government has compiled statistics on the changes in the numbers of applications for labour importation in respect of the relevant industries and job categories received and approved before and after the launch of such measures; whether the Government has assessed the effectiveness of such measures; 

(2) of the number of complaints about abusing the ESLS received by the Government since its launch and the contents of such complaints; the number of employers subjected to administrative sanctions after the Government's investigations into such complaints and, among them, the number of employers prohibited from importing labour for two years; whether the Government will consider introducing other penalties for abuse of the ESLS; 

(3) of the number of persons (including workers and employers) arrested and the relevant penalties imposed in cases involving illegal workers in the past three years, with breakdowns by industry, and among such cases, the number of those involving driving for the carriage of passengers; and 

(4) as the Chief Executive's 2025 Policy Address has pointed out that the Government is undertaking a mid-term update of the Manpower Projection with focus on analysing data of industries with a larger number of imported labour, of the progress of the relevant work, and whether it has drawn up a specific timetable to enable an expeditious review of the ESLS on the basis of the outcome of the analysis? 

Reply:
 
President,
 
     To cope with the challenges brought by manpower shortage and foster Hong Kong's economic development, the Government, on the premise of ensuring employment priority for local workers, suitably allows employers with genuine difficulty in recruiting suitable local workers 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. The Government has been closely monitoring the employment market and adopting a flexible and targeted approach to adjust the implementation arrangements of the ESLS in light of the latest situation, while combating illegal workers rigorously to safeguard the employment priority for local workers.
 
     In consultation with the Security Bureau (SB), the reply to the Member's question is as follows:

(1) To ensure the employment priority for local workers and having regard to the situation and changes in the manpower supply and demand of individual industries and posts, the ESLS introduced new requirements of local recruitment on September 10, 2025, requiring employers applying to import waiters/waitresses and junior cooks to join a job fair held at a job centre specified by the LD once a week during the local recruitment period, and conduct job interviews on the spot. The Chief Executive's 2025 Policy Address also announced that from September 18, 2025, when applying to import waiters/waitresses and junior cooks, the local recruitment period is extended from four weeks to six weeks, and a tightened manning ratio requirement of 2:1 is implemented for the above-mentioned two posts by changing the calculation basis from all posts of an applicant employer to each post under application. In other words, an employer applying to import a waiter/waitress and a junior cook must have already employed two local full-time waiters/ waitresses and two local full-time junior cooks.
 
     Since the implementation of the above new requirements in September, the number of applications for labour importation from the food and beverage services industry has dropped markedly from a monthly average of nearly 370 applications between June and August 2025 to about 260 applications after September. Upon the implementation of a more stringent manning ratio requirement, the approval rate and the number of imported waiters/waitresses and junior cooks approved have both declined. The number of approvals for these two posts decreased from monthly averages of nearly 610 and 560 respectively between June and August 2025 to about 560 and 310. The new requirement of attendance at job fairs has enhanced the transparency of vacancy information and made it easier for local job seekers to apply for jobs on the spot at job fairs, thereby facilitating employment matching in the local labour market and encouraging the industry to take on suitable local job seekers. The implementation of the post-based manning ratio requirement also effectively drives employers to employ local workers to take up relevant posts.

(2) Since the implementation of the ESLS on September 4, 2023, and as at December 31, 2025, the LD received a total of 832 complaints relating to the ESLS, mainly involving suspected displacement of serving local employees with imported workers, non-compliance with the manning ratio requirement or work arrangements of imported workers, etc. During the same period, the LD imposed administrative sanctions on 24 employers who had violated the Employees' Compensation Ordinance, occupational safety and health legislation, Immigration Ordinance (IO) or requirements of the ESLS, including withdrawing the approvals for importing labour granted to 22 employers under the ESLS and refusing to process their subsequent applications for labour importation in the following two years, as well as refusing to process the applications submitted by two employers and their subsequent applications for labour importation in the following year.
              
     The Government does not condone any act of violation. The LD has been closely monitoring the implementation of the ESLS, reviewing and refining its operational and implementation arrangements in good time to ensure employers' compliance with various requirements under the ESLS.

(3) The Government is committed to combating illegal employment so as to safeguard the employment opportunities of local workers. It is a serious offence to engage in illegal employment. Illegal workers, employers, as well as aiders and abettors of illegal employment will be liable to prosecution in accordance with IO.
              
     According to the records of the Immigration Department (ImmD), the number of law enforcement operations against illegal workers (including joint operations with other departments including the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF)) in the past three years, as well as the number of illegal workers and employers arrested therein are tabulated below:
 

Year	Number of operations	Illegal workers	Employers
2023	17 248	1 304	502
2024	17 906	1 268	513
2025	19 980	1 264	569

     The arrested illegal workers were mainly engaged in work related to the catering or renovation industries. Over the past three years, the majority of the convicted illegal workers were sentenced to imprisonment with imprisonment terms ranging from six days to 23 months, whereas the majority of the convicted employers were sentenced to imprisonment or a fine, with imprisonment terms ranging from 28 days to 19 months, and fines ranging from $1,000 to $100,000. The ImmD does not maintain a breakdown of other statistics mentioned in the question.
 
     As regards illegal workers involved in driving for carriage of passengers, during the enforcement operations against illegal hire car services taken by the HKPF in the past three years, a total of 11 illegal workers were arrested, and 11 persons alleged to have assisted illegal workers to engage in illegal employment in Hong Kong through online car hailing platforms were arrested for offences such as conspiracy to defraud.
 
     The SB established in September 2025 an Inter-departmental Task Force against Illegal Employment (Task Force) to further step up efforts in combating illegal employment. The members of the Task Force include the Labour and Welfare Bureau (LWB), the Education Bureau, the Transport and Logistics Bureau, the ImmD, the HKPF, the LD and the Transport Department. The Task Force will continue to closely monitor the situation of illegal employment, formulate overall response strategies in a timely manner and step up efforts in combating illegal employment to safeguard the employment of local workers.

(4) The LWB has commenced the mid-term update of the Manpower Projection to update the projection of the overall manpower supply and demand for 2028 by using the most recent situation in 2025 as the baseline. Relevant results are expected to be announced in the fourth quarter of 2026. To tie in with the ESLS review which is to be completed in the first half of 2026, the LWB will accord priority to data analysis for industries with a higher proportion of imported labour, with a view to providing the relevant part of analytical results in advance for reference in reviewing the ESLS and supporting the Government's medium- to long-term planning.

Ends/Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Issued at HKT 11:05

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