Against the backdrop of an aging population and the recent massive emigration, the Hong Kong government is set to significantly increase the number of imported workers. Most of them are expected to come from mainland China through a special scheme that bypasses a long-standing supervisory mechanism on labor relations, thus causing concerns over a further dismantling of the systems established under British rule, as well as the fear of replacing local Hongkongers with mainland Chinese on a large scale.
The “Special Scheme” will commence on June 19. The plan is to recruit care workers to work for the local residential care homes for the elderly and the disabled. The scheme aims to import an additional 3,000 care workers, on top of the 4,000 who are already working in Hong Kong, that was imported previously with approval from the Labour Advisory Board (LAB), a decades-long statutory body to advise the government on labor relations, with members from the Labour Department, and representatives from employers and employees.
The New Scheme Bypasses the Supervisory Mechanism
Labor importation in Hong Kong can be dated back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when a labor shortage problem emerged as the city was undergoing a transition from an industrial economy to a service one. The British colonial government devised a “Supplementary Labour Scheme” (SLS) to set requirements for employers to fulfill if they needed to import labor. This was to ensure that job opportunities for local workers were not undermined in the face of incoming foreign labor. Under this scheme, the LAB approves applications for labor importation and supervises its operation. As the LAB comprises representatives of employers and employees, it has voices and power from the public. SLS has been in place for over three decades.
