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(b) The Government has no plan to set up a special quota for the importation of workers specifically for the livestock farm industry. However, we have proposed the introduction of a Supplementary Labour Scheme (SLS) with a quota ceiling of 5,000 to assist employers who have genuine need to import workers to take up jobs which cannot be filled locally. It would be open to applications from all industries, including the livestock farm industry. Each application would be considered on its own merits and there would not be any industry sub-quotas. Meanwhile, we would advise employers in the livestock farm industry with job vacancies to continue to recruit suitable local workers through all possible employment channels, including the Job Matching Programme of the Labour Department and any retraining programmes which may be organised by the ERB.
Apart from organising the above retraining programme with ERB, the AFD has been taking the following measures to address the manpower problem and other development needs of the livestock farm industry:
i) provision of short training courses to farmers geared to enhance the
productivity of the industry;
ii) provision of technical advice on the adoption of labour-saving
practices and machinery; and
iii) provision of technical support to promote modern, efficient, safe and
environmentally acceptable farming methods.
(c) According to feedback from retrainees who have left the programme, the primitive living conditions, the long and irregular working hours, and the difficulty of adapting to the laborious nature of work on a pig farm have deterred them from staying on in the programme.
The ERB has conducted a thorough review of the pilot retraining programme. It is now discussing with both the AFD and the two leading pig farmers associations the possibility of organising a second programme in early 1996.
End/Wednesday, November 29, 1995