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Govt's firm commitment to dealing with age discrimination
The Government believes that at this stage, the more prudent approach to tackling the issue of age discrimination in employment would be to focus on implementing a sustained programme of public education, publicity and self- regulation.
The Government will review the effectiveness of the programme after it has run for a reasonable period of time. Depending upon the outcome of the evaluation, the Government will re-examine the question of legislation at a later date.
This was announced today (Friday) by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at a press conference to outline govemment's plan to take the issue forward after the consultation exercise which ended in early August this year.
Stressing the Government's firm commitment to dealing with the subject of age discrimination in employment, Mr Wong said the long term public education programme at an estimated cost of $2 million a year would be launched early next
year.
Mr Wong said he would deploy resources from his Branch's global allocation for this financial year and additional resources had been secured to continue for the programme in subsequent years.
As part of the publicity drive, a set of non-statutory guidelines will be drawn up to help employers deal with recruitment and employment issues in a non-age- discriminatory manner.
"In addition, message will be disseminated to various sectors of the community through advertisements, information leaflets or publications; and announcements of public interest on television and radio.
He pointed out that during the consultation period, the Government had received 68 submissions, the majority from individuals. Of those submissions, 25 or 36 per cent supported the option of legislation, 11 or 16 per cent supported public education only, while 16 or 24 per cent supported a combination of public education and legislation. There were also 16 or 24 per cent that did not express a preference for any particular option.
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