EMPLOYMENT
with the nine leading employment web sites operating in Hong Kong. Through the IES employment portal, job-seekers can now access the great majority of the vacancies being advertised at any time.
Helping the Disabled Find Jobs
The Selective Placement Division of the Labour Department helps people with a disability integrate into the community through open employment. It provides a free employment counselling and placement service for the hearing impaired, sight impaired, physically handicapped, chronically ill, ex-mentally ill and mentally handicapped. In 2000, the division launched a series of activities to promote the employment of people with a disability. It recorded 3 789 job-seekers with a disability and achieved 2 007 placements.
Careers Guidance
The Careers Advisory Service of the Labour Department, through the promotion of careers education, helps young people to choose a career best suited to their talents, interests and abilities and also supports careers teachers with back-up information. The public can also access careers information published by the service through its web site (http://www.careers. labour.gov.hk).
Throughout the year, the service organised career talks and arranged student group visits to its careers information centres and various commercial and industrial establishments. Its Education and Careers Expo 2000 attracted over 200 000 visitors while a total of 154 000 students took part in its Careers Quiz 2000.
Skills Upgrading Scheme
With the advent of a knowledge-based economy and the increasing application of technologies in different economic sectors, it is important that workers, including elementary workers with lower educational attainment, continually upgrade their skills to maintain their competitiveness in the labour market. In his Policy Address, the Chief Executive announced that the Government had set aside $400 million for the provision of focused skills training for workers with secondary or below education. A Steering Committee with representatives of industry, training providers, employees and the Government was set up in November to develop appropriate training programmes.
Employees Retraining Scheme
The Employees Retraining Fund was set up in 1992 to support the operation of the Employees Retraining Scheme (ERS). The Employees Retraining Board (ERB), with a governing body comprising representatives from the Government, employers, employees, training institutions and human resource professionals, is responsible for administering the scheme. In addition to regular income from a levy collected under the labour importation scheme, the Chief Executive announced in his Policy Address that the Government would provide recurrent subvention to the ERB from 2001–02 onwards, in order to provide the ERB with a more stable source of income. The subvention in 2001-02 amounts to $400 million.
The ERS focuses on assisting displaced workers who have experienced difficulties in finding alternative employment. The main target group of the scheme is displaced workers aged 30 or over with lower secondary education or lower. The scheme offers
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