HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1st October 1971.
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over 600,000 and an extremely low level of unemployment generally has contributed to a rise of 90 per cent in average industrial wages since 1964. Meanwhile the cost of living indexes rose by only some 25 per cent. The standard of living as measured by real wages can therefore be said to have improved by something like 45 per cent over the last seven years. Of course this is an average figure only: some will have benefited less, and others more.
But our economic expansion has also provided a climate in which we have been able to improve working conditions. The past four years have seen a steady flow of labour legislation which has led, among other things, to a reduction in the number of disputes over non-payment of wages; to maternity protection for women, and to four rest days a month for most employees. The scope of the Workmen's Compensa- tion Scheme has been extended and its rates of benefit enhanced. Standard hours of work for women and young persons in industry have been progressively reduced since 1967 to a maximum of 48 hours per week from the 1st of December this year. This Council will shortly, I hope, have before it legislation for the setting up of special courts to deal quickly with specific claims arising from employment disputes, and legislation also for the establishment of a modern system of craft and technician apprenticeship. All these are very considerable steps forward, but, like all legislation in this field, every step has to be taken most care- fully to avoid unforeseen side-effects and, moreover, employers must do their part, as indeed many of course do, by introducing enlightened methods of personnel management.
Our economic prosperity has furthermore acted as the spring- board which has enabled us to speed up the development of social services; particularly housing, education, health and welfare; to the point where public expenditure on these is now running at $1,180 million annually, compared with $314 million ten years ago.
By 1964 the Government housing programme was well in its stride, and over half a million people had been rehoused in seven-storey resettlement blocks built since the Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953. The design has been progressively improved since the elementary patterns of those days, and, in addition, in 1963 we went a step further by starting to build housing for low income families, other than those being cleared from squatter areas. Recently we took a big step forward in deciding that resettlement estates should henceforth be built to the higher standards already used for these Government low cost housing
estates.
The Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society have moreover continued to build accommodation for families with incomes rather higher than those catered for by Government low cost housing.