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electronics industry had criginally been foremost in pressing for permission to employ women at night).
17. The belief of many Hong Kong employers that there existed a large untapped pool of female labour prepared to work at night has been decisively disproved. No doubt the numbers could be increased if smaller employers were permitted to employ women at night (at present the maximum permitted number of women on night shift is 50), but this would create serious problems of supervision. It has also been represented that recruitment would be easier if the requirement about rotation of shifts were to be removed. (At present a woman must not be employed on night shift for more than two months without a minimum interven- ing period cf one month of employment on the day shift.) The effect on the supply of female labour of removing this protective condition could only be minimal; further proposed concessions about night work conditions should be strenuously resisted. It is not worth damaging Hong Kong's much improved labour image for the sake of adding a handful of female workers to an industrial labour force of over 600,000.
The Labour Department
18. The public image of the Department has greatly improved in the last year or so and much of this can be attributed not only to the improving performance of the Department, but also to the better handling of public relations. All this is reflected in staff morale. The large scale re-organisation and strengthening of the Department which began in 1964/65 is showing results. The reorganised departmert has six divisions: Labour Relations; Industrial Health; Industrial Training; Employment: Industry; and Development. A new Regional Office has been opened in Fong Kong and another in Kowloon. These are supported by a network of branch offices. A strict training programme applies to all new entrants and advantage is taken (to the limit of staffing needs) of openings for further training overseas.
19. The Labour Relations Service is now firmly established and has begun to acquire an excellenc reputation for its handling of disputes. The establishment is 23 officers as compared with 9 officers in 1969. The Service dealt with no less than 3,450 disputes in 1971 (2,332 in 1970). Most disputes arose from disagreement over piece rates, redundancy, dismissals or insolvency.
The strengthening of this Division has made a valuable contribution to industrial peace, not only through direct intervention in disputes, but also through the constructive work of its officers in propagating joint consulta- tion and improved ideas of how workers' grievances should be handled. There is unfortunately nc legal basis for the conciliation work of these officers, but this will be remedied should legislation on the lines described in paragraph 7 above be introduced.
20. The Youth Employment Advisory Service is now engaged in the second stage of development, ie direct advisory work in schools.
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