Jobless rate drops to three-year low
By Joseph Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-01-19 14:20

The unemployment situation in Hong Kong continues to improve, with the jobless rate falling to the lowest in nearly three years, the government said yesterday.

For October to December, the unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percentage points from the September-November period to 6.5 per cent, while the under-employment rate ebbed 0.1 percentage points to 3.1 per cent.

The number of people employed surged 20,400 to a historic high of 3.328 million, but the total labour force also rose by 10,200 to 3.544 million.

The number of unemployed fell to its lowest level since November 2001.

Announcing the latest figures yesterday, Financial Secretary Henry Tang said the fall in the jobless rate was significant since the figures have been stagnant for a while, but the government remains vigilant because Hong Kong is still undergoing a structural change in the economy.

"The government will work closely with the labour and other sectors in the hope of attracting investment and revitalizing the economy so as to create more employment opportunities," said Tang.

As raised in the chief executive's 2005 Policy Address, Tang said close to 10,000 temporary contract jobs in the public sector, involving HK$700 million, have been extended to meet operational needs.

And there would be about 100,000 job openings arising from implementation of various tourism and infrastructure projects in the coming year.

Ho Lok-sang, an economic professor at Lingnan University, was pleased to note the increase in total number of people employed.

"Since the workforce is growing slower than the size of employment, there are more job openings available in the market," Ho said.

"I predict that unemployment will continue to improve in line with consistent economic growth and will drop below 6 per cent during the year."

The government said the overall atmosphere of the labour market continued to improve, which was evidenced by the high level of vacancy figures recorded by the Labour Department.

Traditionally, company hirings tend to slacken towards the end of the year but the department still received 24,589 job vacancies from the private sector last December, representing a significant surge of 47.3 per cent over a year ago.

For 2004 as a whole, the department netted an all-time high of 297,186 vacancies from the private sector, up 38 per cent over 2003.

Falls in the unemployment rate were mainly seen in the wholesale trade, restaurants, business services and hotel sectors.

However, the construction sector was named by Tang as the unemployment toll-zone, and the industry could not agree with him more.

Choi Chun-wa, chairman of Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union, said there are fewer construction projects in both the private and public sectors.

The situation is aggravated by the scrapped construction plans of the Home Ownership Scheme flats and slower building schedules for public housing units, Choi said.

"I hope the government will expedite the building projects ... to improve the employment situation in the construction sector."

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