EMPLOYMENT
Foreign Domestic Helpers
57
Administrative measures are in force to regulate and protect the employment of domestic helpers recruited from overseas under valid contracts that must be attested by the Labour Department. During the year, 15 137 such contracts were attested.
Employment Agencies
The Employment Agency Regulations made under the Employment Ordinance require all profit-making employment agencies to obtain a licence from the Commissioner for Labour before starting operation. During the year, the department issued 151 licences to employment agencies dealing with local employment and 28 to those catering for employment overseas.
Careers Service
The Youth Employment Advisory Service of the Labour Department is engaged in a planned programme of activities geared to helping students and young people choose a career best suited to their talents, interests and abilities. In 1982, officers of the service gave 358 talks on careers to about 70 439 students in 333 secondary schools. The service also organised, with the Hong Kong Associaton of Careers Masters, six regional careers conventions and took part in 32 other activities to provide careers information to students, teachers, parents and interested parties. The service has produced 42 careers pamphlets on job opportunities in commerce, industry, the services and government. It also produces a monthly careers newsletter which is distributed free of charge to secondary schools, youth centres and other youth organisations.
The service operates three careers information centres on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and in Tsuen Wan. Each centre is equipped with a careers reference library with about 1 250 titles on careers and related subjects, as well as audio-visual facilities for films, slide presentations, video-cassette recordings, cassette recordings and other resources. In 1982, some 25 673 students and young people visited the centres.
The Labour Department's 11th Annual Careers Exhibition was held at the City Hall in November. Altogether, 22 exhibitors from commerce, industry and the government took part in the exhibition which attracted 115 655 visitors.
Industrial Safety
The Factory Inspectorate of the Labour Department is responsible for enforcing the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance and its subsidiary regulations. These provide for the safety and health of workers in factories, on building and engineering construction sites, and at other industrial undertakings. Advice and assistance is given to management on guarding dangerous machinery parts, adopting safe working practices and laying out new factories to achieve a better working environment. The inspectorate also investigates industrial accidents and dangerous occurrences.
During the year, two sets of new regulations were introduced. The Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Electricity) Regulations became effective in December 1982, providing for the safe use of electricity in industrial undertakings. The Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Amendment) Regulations 1982, which became effective in December, require the proper maintenance of machinery and plant to minimise noise and the use of ear protectors by workers in industrial undertakings exposed to excessive noise. The shipbuilding and ship repairing industry safety sub-committee and the plastics. industry safety sub-committee, set up in May, became the third and fourth tripartite,