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Friday, May 18, 1973
NUMBER OF INDUSTRIAL UNDERTAKINGS INCREASES
*
There are now 21,759 registered and recorded industrial undertakings
in Hong Kong.
The latest survey carried out in March by the Labour Department showed
an increase of 409 over the number of industrial undertakings recorded at the
previous survey last December.
The four largest industries in terms of employment still are the manufacture of textile and textile made-up goods (265,861 or 43 per cent
of total employment); plastic products (72,009 or 12 per cent); electrical
machinery, apparatus, appliances and supplies (60,838 or 10 per cent); and
fabricated metal products other than machinery (49,117 or 8 per cent).
In releasing the results of the survey today, the Commissioner of
Labour, Mr. Paul Tsui, said that industrial employment stood at 616,609.
This was a slight decrease of 3,075 (0.5 per cent) over the December figures,
a pattern similar to that of the corresponding quarter last year (January-
March, 1972).
"However, there was a three per cent increase compared with the
figures for March last year
somewhat larger than the 0.9 per cent increase
of the March 1972 figures over the March 1971 figures," he said.
Mr. Tsui said the survey recorded a total of 21,832 vacancies over a
wide range of industries- an increase of 2,000 places over the December figures.
The main vacancies fell within the following industries:- electronics
(5,664) (26 per cent), garments (5,108) (23 per cent), plastics (2,099) (10 per
cent), metal products (1,240) (6 per cent) and cotton spinning and weaving
(1,147) (5 per cent).
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