Republic of China, or the Hong Kong and Kowloon Trades Union Council, which sympathises with the policies of the Taiwan authorities. For ideo- logical and other reasons, the trade union movement is not united. As a result, heavy responsibilities are placed on the government to ensure that employees' interests are safeguarded and promoted. These responsibilities are shared by the more progressive employers in the private sector.
Hong Kong has relatively few industrial disputes. In 1973-74, the Labour Department dealt with 4,940 labour problems, most of which were of a grievance nature involving individuals in claims of wages in arrears, wages in lieu of notice, holiday pay etc. There were 40 work stoppages, seven of which were either preceded or followed by a lockout, and the number of working days lost in these disputes was 49,311. The ratios of annual loss per 1,000 employees as a result of industrial action in recent years are:
working days lost per 1,000 employees
year
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
6.72
31.11
37.41
19.65
30.76
39.70
STRUCTURE OF THE LABOUR MARKET
The 1971 population census revealed that 1,654,907 people were "economically active" and 1,582,849 claimed to be working. Of this number, the distribution among different sectors of economic activity
was:—
table I
industrial group
workers
number of % of total economically
active population
manufacturing
677,498*
40.9
services
312,173
18.9
commerce
208,604
12.6
construction and engineering
168,773
10.2
farming, forestry and fishing
62,975
3.8
transport and communications
114,722
6.9
public utilities
8,870
0.5
mining and quarrying
4,518
0.3
others (unclassifiable)
24,716
1.5
total working population
1,582,849
95.6
unemployed and job-seekers
72,058
4.4
total economically active
1,654,907
100
population
* includes outworkers.
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