XN000022-1973-05-18 — Page 6

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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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