Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region – 4

     Following is a question by the Hon Luk Chung-hung and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Chris Sun, in the Legislative Council today (July 9):
 
Question:
 
     According to the general requirements of the sector-specific labour importation schemes and the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS), employers shall fulfil a manning ratio of 2:1 for full-time local employees to imported workers (the manning ratio), and the ESLS also requires applicant employers to undertake a four-week local recruitment exercise and accord priority to employing suitable local workers to fill the job vacancies. However, some workers have reflected that some employers have taken advantage of the loopholes in the relevant policies to dismiss local workers or switch them from full-time to part-time after submitting their labour importation applications to the Labour Department (LD), and some employers even have no intention of recruiting local workers. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
 
(1) given that in the reply to a question raised by a Member of this Council on 18th of last month, the Government indicated that upon completion of the four-week local recruitment procedures, the LD would contact each of the local job seekers who was not employed by the employers and assess whether the employers are genuinely committed to recruiting local workers, of the number of contacts made by the LD with job seekers who were not employed since the launch of the ESLS, and the reasons for the relevant employers’ refusal to employ them; the criteria adopted by the LD for assessing the validity of the employer’s reasons for refusal to recruit;

(2) whether it has taken the initiative to investigate if employers have made “excessive demands” on local job seekers (i.e. excessively high recruitment thresholds and heavy workload but relatively low salary, etc); if so, of the number of investigations conducted by the LD and the follow-up actions taken; if not, the reasons for that;

(3) of the mechanism in place to monitor whether employers have strictly adhered to the requirement for conducing four-week local recruitment; whether employers will be required to, before applying for the ESLS, publish the job vacancies on the LD’s Interactive Employment Service website and retain for at least four weeks;

(4) since 2023, (i) of the number of labour importation applications rejected by the LD due to the failure of the information submitted by the employers to meet the manning ratio; and (ii) of the number of complaints received by the LD regarding employers allegedly failing to continuously meet the manning ratio, the follow-up actions and the corresponding penalties;

(5) since 2023, of the respective numbers of (a) surprise and (b) non-surprise inspections conducted by the LD (i) at workplaces with imported workers, and (ii) cases detected and follow-up actions taken in respect of non-compliance with the manning ratio requirement, with a breakdown as set out in the table below; and
 

 
(6) of the measures in place to combat the non-compliant acts under various labour importation schemes in order to prevent abuse of the labour importation policy; whether employers will be required to report to the LD the number, name, working hour, wage and so on of their local employees and imported workers on a monthly basis after their labour importation applications have been approved; if so, of the details; if not, not reasons for that?

Reply:
 
President,

     To cope with the challenges brought by manpower shortage and on the premise of ensuring employment priority for local workers, the Government has enhanced the mechanism for importation of labour. 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.

     The reply to the Member’s question is as follows:

(1) To safeguard the 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 vacancies at a salary not lower than the prevailing median monthly wage of a comparable position in the market. Upon employers’ completion of the local recruitment procedures, 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. The most common reason for job seekers not being employed is failing to meet the entry requirements, such as not having relevant work skills and lacking relevant experience.  Depending on the circumstances, the LD will contact each unsuccessful job seeker several times to follow up on the interview results.

(2) and (3) The LD stringently processes each application under the ESLS, and conducts initial screening for each applied post and reviews the employment terms, including the scope of duties, entry and academic requirements, work locations, monthly salary and hours of work, to ensure that the salary offered by an employer meets the median monthly wage and the recruitment terms are reasonable.

     After passing the initial screening, employers shall adopt the recruitment terms as agreed by the LD and undergo four-week local recruitment. During this period, the LD will publish the job vacancies on the Interactive Employment Service website, conduct job matching for relevant vacancies and disseminate the vacancy information to members of the Labour Advisory Board, relevant trade unions and training institutions to facilitate their referrals of suitable local job seekers for application. Employers shall in parallel place recruitment advertisements in local newspaper(s) or on other recruitment platform(s). The ESLS requires that employers taking on local job seekers through any recruitment channels during the local recruitment period must not offer employment terms less favourable than those agreed by the LD, nor can they impose on job seekers any restrictive requirements such as age or gender, or other entry requirements not approved by the LD.

    Upon completion of the local recruitment procedures, employers shall report the results and submit the recruitment advertisements to the LD for verification. The LD will contact each of the local job seekers who is not employed to verify the interview details. 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 concerned employer in the following year.

(4) The ESLS requires relevant employers to meet the manning ratio requirement of full-time local employees to imported workers of 2:1 (manning ratio requirement) on a continuous basis. Full-time employees refer to local employees who are directly employed by an employer and work not less than 35 hours per week for operating the relevant business, excluding part-time staff, staff of subcontractors or self-employed persons providing services to the employer. From September 4, 2023, to June 2025, the LD refused 29 applications for labour importation that failed to meet the manning ratio requirement. In addition, the number of imported workers approved for each application must also comply with the manning ratio mentioned above.

     From September 4, 2023, to April 2025, the LD did not receive any complaint against employers for non-compliance with the manning ratio requirement. As for the 31 related complaints received between May and June 2025, the LD is conducting investigation, including inspecting the workplaces of imported workers and verifying relevant employment records. If violation of the requirement is substantiated, the LD will impose administrative sanction and refuse to process other application(s) submitted by the employer in the following year.

(5) and (6) In 2023, 2024 and from January to May 2025, Labour Inspectors of the LD conducted 5 695, 5 417 and 2 873 inspections respectively to workplaces of imported workers and imported workers’ accommodation provided by employers in Hong Kong to protect the employment rights of imported workers. The LD will not give prior notice to the responsible persons of relevant premises before conducting workplace inspections.

    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 on the Interactive Employment Service website, launching a special inspection campaign to check whether establishments employing imported workers have continuously met the manning ratio requirement, and 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.

    To safeguard the employment priority for local workers, the ESLS requires employers not to displace local workers with imported workers and meet the manning ratio requirement on a continuous basis. In the event of redundancy, imported workers should be retrenched first. If there is evidence substantiating violation of the requirement of the ESLS, the LD will impose administrative sanction on the employers, including withdrawal of approvals for importation of labour previously granted and refusal to process other applications submitted by the employers (debarment period up to two years), etc.

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