EMPLOYMENT
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semi-skilled; and $5.60 to $14.50 for unskilled. Many employers provide their workers with free accommodation, subsidized meals or food-allowances, good attendance bonuses, and paid rest-days as well as a lunar new year bonus of one month's pay.
A consumer price index, intended as an indicator of the effects of price changes on household expenditure, was published throughout the year. It varied from 111 to 118 (base of 100-period of September 1963 to August 1964). In December 1968 it stood at 112. The 1965 Salaries Commission recommended that a special index based on the expenditure of households spending less than $600 a month should be published and used as the basis for monthly adjustment in the salaries of minor staff in government service. In accordance with this recommendation, a separate index, known as the Modified Consumer Price Index, was devised. A proportion of the wages of minor staff (Scale 1) in the public service is adjusted quarterly by reference to this index.
The Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance is the basis for the control of hours and conditions of work in industry. On December 1, 1967, amending legislation came into force which reduced the maximum standard working hours for women and for young people aged 16 and 17 years to nine-and-a-half hours a day and 57 a week as the first stage of a phased programme which will result in the reduction of the maximum standard hours for women and young persons to eight a day and 48 a week by December 1, 1971. The first stage of the programme was carried out without serious difficulties. The second phase of the programme came into force on December 1, 1968 and reduced the maximum standard working hours for women and for young persons aged 16 and 17 years to nine hours a day and 54 a week. In addition to providing for maximum daily hours, regulations made under the ordinance provide for limited overtime, weekly rest days, and rest periods for women and young persons.
The Industrial Employment (Holidays with Pay and Sickness Allowance) Ordinance provides for six annual holidays to be given to workers in industrial establishments and for sickness allowance up to 12 days a year. The ordinance was amended on May 24, 1968 to bring it generally in to line with general holidays provided under the Holidays Ordinance.