Chapter 3: Occupations, Wages and Labour Organization
The principal sources of employment in Hong Kong and Kowloon are industry, commercial houses connected with the diminished entrepôt trade, and the internal dis- tributive trades.
No general employment figures are available, nor has it been feasible since the war, due to rapidly changing conditions and varying population heights, for the Govern- ment to undertake the compilation of such figures. Exact employment figures are however held in all industrial concerns registered with the Labour Department, and these cover the bulk of the Colony's industrial life.
The slight improvement in the Colony's external trade during 1955 is a fairly reliable indication that the reductions in commercial staff which were frequent from 1952 onwards, during the period when the Colony's economy was adjusting itself to the international restrictions on trade with China, have now ceased. But the demand for commercial employ- ment is high, suggesting that the improvement in trade has not yet been on a large enough scale to cause much increase in personnel employed by commercial houses.
There is no evidence of any substantial change in the number of people engaged in agriculture and fishing, usually estimated at about 250,000.
The total number of people employed by the Hong Kong Government and by the Armed Services in a civilian non-industrial capacity is in the neighbourhood of 40,000, while an additional 25,000 are engaged in public transport services.
The main factor affecting employment in 1955—and a welcome one-was the continued expansion of local industry, with a consequent increase in the number of factory workers. The number of officially registered and recorded industrial establishments rose by 431, or 17%, to 2,925, while the number of factory workers increased by 12%, to 129,465. There was a corresponding increase, in the industrial fringe which consists of concerns too small to be liable to registra-