6
301
Employment
HONG KONG has a resourceful and energetic workforce of 2 541 500 comprising 1 600 600 men and 940 900 women - as estimated from findings of the July-September 1984 General Household Survey. They are engaged in: agriculture and fishing, mining and quarrying, 29 800; manufacturing, 959 400; electricity, gas and water, 12 100; con- struction, 201 700; wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, 549 600; transport, storage and communications, 203 000; financing, insurance, real estate and business services, 130 600; community, social and personal services, 455 200; and unclassifiable activities, 100.
An establishment survey of Employment, Vacancies and Payroll in the manufacturing sector, held in September 1984, recorded 904 709 people engaged in 48 992 establishments. It covered working proprietors and partners, employees receiving pay, and unpaid family workers affiliated to business organisations, but excluded the self-employed, out-workers, and other unpaid workers who were included in the household-type survey. Some 380 782 people – the largest portion of the manufacturing workforce - were engaged in the textile and wearing apparel industries. The electrical industry and the plastics industry were the next two largest employers. Details of the distribution of manufacturing establishments, and of the number of people engaged in them, are given at Appendices 13 and 14.
The bulk of the manufacturing workforce is concentrated in the urban areas of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. However, industrial development in the New Territories is increasing and more than 25 per cent of the manufacturing workforce now works there.
Labour Legislation
During 1984, 10 items of labour legislation were enacted to provide for higher standards of safety, health and welfare of workers. This brings the total number of items of labour legislation enacted in the last 10 years to 152–
The Employment Ordinance was amended in 1984 to improve the provisions regarding severance payment, to clarify the obligations of employers in respect of contractual end-of-year payments, to re-assign one of the two 'floating' holidays consequent upon amendments to the Holidays Ordinance, and to make various minor amendments. Action was also being taken to legislate for the establishment of a Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund to protect workers against loss of wages in the event of their employers becoming insolvent. In this connection, the Business Registration Ordinance was amended to provide for the imposition of an annual levy on companies required to hold business registration certificates as a source of finance for the operation of the fund.
The Apprenticeship Ordinance was amended to empower the Director of Technical Education and Industrial Training to exempt, with the approval of the Commissioner for Labour, any person or class of persons from any regulation made under the ordinance.