undertakings on periods of employment, hours of work, overtime,
and rest periods for all women and all young persons, both male
and female. The maximum standard working hours permitted are
60 a week and ten a day with one rest day in every seven except
in respect of young persons, both male and female, aged 14 years
and 15 years where the maximum is 48 hours a week and eight hours
a day together with the sane requirement for a rest day. I would
like to mention at this stage that the number of young persons
employed in industrial undertakings is small and accounts for
less than 1% of the total working force. Hong Kong is not
different from many other places in containing a wide range of
industries where conditions of employment vary widely.
It is
different in that the maximum working hours for women and some
young persons are higher than those permitted by statute or by
negotiated agreements in most other places. Steps are now being
planned to bring Hong Kong more into line with widely-accepted
international standards. A complicated pattern of practices with
regard to hours of work exists. In some industries a standard
working week of 48 hours is universally observed. In other
industries it is the common but not the universal practice to
work a standard week of 48 hours. In some industries, the general
standard working week is the statutory maximum of 60 hours. In
others, there is a wide variety of different hours followed by
individual factories.
5.
To meet this complicated situation involving problems of
wage rates and earnings and of forward planning by managements
it would be possible to adopt two methods of approach. One is to
seek to arrange for the progressive reduction of the maximum
statutory hours of work throughout all industries by a phased
programme with the object of endeavouring to ensure that all
industries can effectively plan ahead for this reduction without
adverse economic effects on both labour and management. The other
.is to take/
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