XN000022-1997-04-30 — Page 57

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No statistics on unemployment details of CSSA recipients

Following is a question by the Hon Chan Wing-chan and a written reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

Reply:

Will the Government inform this Council of:

(a)

(b)

Mr President,

(a)

(b)

the total number of persons and who were unemployed due to dismissal or redundancy who applied for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) in the past three years; and

whether it can provide a breakdown of the numbers of the above unemployed persons according to "sex and previous employment by trade classification", "age and previous employment by trade classification", "sex and previous occupation" and "age and previous occupation"; if not, what the reasons are, and whether the Government will consider collecting such information and publishing it on a regular basis?

The Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme seeks to provide assistance to financially vulnerable members of our community to meet their basic needs, regardless of sex, age, family status and background. We do not therefore maintain separate statistics on the number of CSSA applicants who were unemployed due to dismissal or redundancy.

For the reason given in part (a), we do not have ready information on the sex, age and previous employment of CSSA recipients in the "unemployed" category. We will consider collecting such data and publishing it when the new management information system under preparation is in place.

End