XN000022-1995-01-18 — Page 50

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Local workers employed on new airport project

Following is a question by the Hon Henry Tang Ying-yen and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Michael Leung, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Regarding the employment of construction workers for the Chek Lap Kok Airport project, will the Government inform this Council of:

Reply:

(a)

(b)

Mr President,

the number of local construction workers who have been interviewed for employment by the project contractors since the commencement of the construction works; among these workers, how many have been employed and what are the main positions in which they are employed; how many have been rejected and what are the reasons for rejection; and

the respective numbers of illegal workers who have been arrested and contractors who have been charged since the commencement of the construction works?

Up to 31 December 1994, a total of 11,962 construction workers have been employed on the Chek Lap Kok airport project and other Airport Core Programme (ACP) projects. Of this total, 8,751 or 73.2 per cent are local workers. It has been a long-standing tradition of the local construction industry that workers are employed directly by contractors and subcontractors on a contract by contract basis. The employment of construction workers for ACP works follows the same pattern. For this reason, very few local construction workers use the Local Employment Service (LES) of the Labour Department as a channel to seek employment. The total number of construction workers who are registered with the LES at any one time is about 200.

We therefore do not have any statistics on the number of local workers who were interviewed by the ACP project contractors and the number of such workers who were not offered employment. However, in accordance with the arrangement under the existing special labour importation scheme for ACP projects, employers who wish to import labour are required to register their vacancies with the Local Employment Service (LES) of Labour Department for a minimum period of four weeks in order that local workers are given first priority to apply for them. Labour Department will also send such information to the construction workers' union, inviting their members to make use of the Department's employment service or to make direct referrals to the contractors concerned. These measures have been in place since October 1992.

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