XN000022-1995-11-08 — Page 4

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Governor: No I don't. The last meeting was helpful and I hope tomorrow's will be helpful as well. The Government is trying to work as I said with employers and the employees. I don't like talking about both sides of industry because everybody should be on the same side and that's what we want to see happening tomorrow. I do think it's important for us in Hong Kong to keep our sights very firmly on the medium and longer term. The principle reason for the increase in unemployment in the last year or so has been firstly a very substantial increase in the number of people who are working in Hong Kong and that's not directly related to the labour importation scheme. There are other reasons for it, returning emigrants from Canada and Australia and so on and legal Chinese immigrants over the last year. Secondly the slowing down in consumer spending which has had an effect on employment in retailing, in the restaurant business and so on, jobs which customarily people who are displaced in low technology manufacturing moved into. Now, what do we need to do in the medium and long term to ensure that if the labour market is continuing to increase we go on growing new jobs to meet that increase. First of all obviously we've got to look at our job matching because there are 50,000 vacancies that still aren't being met in Hong Kong. Secondly we've got to look at our retraining. Thirdly we've got to look at our training. We've got to look at the existing steps that we are taking to stamp out illegal employment. There is a whole host of things that we need to do and I really do think it's important for us to try to tackle that agenda, working together rather than arguing with one another.

Question: (inaudible)

Governor: I don't think there is any doubt at all that with unemployment at 3.5 per cent. But above all, having seen 100,000 added to the work force in Hong Kong last year, not through importation of labour schemes but just because of other natural forces. I think in those circumstances its very sensible to look at the importation of labour both the numbers and the way in which the scheme is organised. If you look at the way the scheme has grown up, it's grown up from about 3,000 when it first started to today's figures, and I think that the employees and the employers recognise that one has to take a look at the way the scheme operates from time to time. But the point we should remember is that this is a part of the overall approach. It's not the key to dealing with unemployment and job creation in Hong Kong. If one was to put all the emphasis on labour importation, we will be missing out on the other things we need to do, on the retraining, on the training, on the job-matching which are probably a great deal more important.

Question: (inaudible)