25
(or "net advantages") of alternative jobs even apart from the wide
range of wage rates for comparable occupations which is apparent from
official surveys*. In our first sample of factory workers, over 40% were
paid on piece-rates, which are generally not standardised between firms
and but fixed at the workplace by supervisors, 34% received incentive bonuses
ん
(the two figures overlap) the earnings yield of which would often be
hard for the individual to judge without direct experience. In
particular, there is a variety of other bonus systems in common use, and
much less standardisation in respect both of these and other fringe
benefits than one would find, say, in a European industrial society.
Tables 4 and 5 in Appendix B gives some indication both of the wide
range of these which might be supplied, and of their possible variation
between employers - for instance, in the Tables' demonstration of a
general difference between larger and smaller firms. And in this case,
the sample covers a limited economic range only the major manufacturing
industries:much more variation would be found in employment as a whole.
While even the most common of bonuses, the so-called "thirteenth month"
or Chinese New Year Bonus, is often unpredictable, since many firms vary
this substantially according to their current prosperity.
36.
For the employees population as a whole, it is evident that
despite the comparative youth of the Hong Kong labour force, the picture
of labour instability is greatly overdrawn. In our second, larger survey
of employees as a whole, for instance, only 26% had worked for their
present employer for less than a year, and over half had been with him
for more than 3 years.
And interviews with individual firms revealed
.....
Thus the last report of the Labour Commissioner quoted $14 - $40 as
the range of daily wages for semi-skilled manufacturing workers
in September 1975.