Reply:
16
Mr President,
(a)
(b)
The Education and Manpower Branch has recently formed an internal working group comprising the Housing Branch, Works Branch, the Government Economist and other relevant Government departments to conduct a special study on the likely manpower requirements of the construction industry in the next three to five years. The objective of this study is to assess the future demand and supply of the building and construction workers with a view to formulating appropriate employment and training measures.
To collate information on the demand of workers, we will shortly be sending a comprehensive questionnaire to all the Government departments responsible for public building and construction projects, the Housing Authority, the Housing Society, as well as major building contractors and developers in the private sector. Our aim is to obtain detailed information about their projected labour requirements by project type, job titles / trade type and the duration of employment.
On the supply of workers, we will make an assessment on the basis of the Government's quarterly statistics on employment and vacancies in the construction industry, the registration and placement statistics from the various employment services of the Labour Department, and the number of graduates from the various construction-related training courses provided by the Vocational Training Council (VTC), the Construction Industry Training Authority (CITA) and the Employees Retraining Board (ERB).
The purpose of the study is to estimate the extent of any imbalance between the demand and supply of construction workers in the next few years. Pending the completion of the study, it is premature to consider what specific action the Government should take to deal with the situation.