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More measures to promote employment
The Labour Department is taking more proactive measures to promote employment and to combat illegal employment in the territory.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Labour, Mr Stephen Ip, at a forum on job matching held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre this (Thursday) afternoon.
More than 230 personnel managers from companies of various trades took part in the forum which is a major event organised by the Labour Relations Division to promote employment through personnel managers' clubs.
The Commissioner for Labour told the managers that his department was playing a more proactive role in helping the unemployed to find jobs.
"We have launched since April a job matching programme (JMP) in five of our nine Local Employment Service offices to provide active placement service to unemployed local workers aged 30 or above," he said.
"This pilot scheme has proved to be a success as about 30 per cent of the 784 registrants have been placed. With the support of the Legislative Council in the creation of 23 additional posts in my department, the scheme could be expanded to all nine employment offices throughout the territory in the next few months."
He added that registrants of the JMP who failed to seek alternative employment would be recommended to take part in tailor-made retraining courses being organised by the Employees Retraining Board to improve their chances of finding jobs.
In a bid to solicit more job vacancies for JMP participants, the Labour Department has also set up an employment promotion team to canvass vacancies from employers and to promote the JMP among employers and job-seekers.
"This promotion team has organised various promotional activities to sell the job matching programme. They have made remarkable achievements in increasing the number of vacancies received by the employment offices," Mr Ip said.
To help workers affected by retrenchments, a special task force has also been set up to reach out to retrenched employees and offer them on-the-spot employment assistance.