TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 100

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of employees as a whole, for instance, only 26% had worked for their

present employer for less than a year, and over half had been with him

for more than 3 years. And interviews with individual firms revealed

several cases where labour turnover was as low as 5% a year. Many of

the larger firms, even in manufacturing, are interested in committing

their labour force (or at least a large proportion of it) permanently

to their employment, relying largely on putting-out work to smaller

sub-contractors to meet surges in demand: such commitment is, indeed,

the purpose of many of the welfare and bonus provisions which they make

(like accommodation and educational subsidies, or "long service" and

seniority bonuses).

37. In any case, over a third of Hong Kong employment is white-collar,

much of it in public services or large trading, financial and commercial

institutions. And in these cases, the employee's prospects of advance-

ment (apart from a smallish number of people with particular technical

or administrative qualifications and expertise which are still in scarce

supply) depend largely on continuity of service with a particular

employer, to whose requirements the employee's knowledge and capacity

become increasingly specific with time. But the same is also true of

many manual occupations; in the absence (until recently) of general

apprenticeship and training systems, workers have acquired their skills

in particular firms, and these are often again fairly specific to one or

two enterprises. Moreover, many larger firms make a practice of

internal promotion to chargehands, foremen and supervisory posts (with

accompanying discrimination in welfare and fringe benefits) which gives

the ambitious worker a strong interest in remaining with one employer.

On the other hand, older men with a refugee background have a special

concern for stability and security. Again, our surveys showed that such

people had often experienced a considerable drop in social and economic

status, which probably increased their reluctance to take the risk of

further mobility.

38.

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Even in industries where short-term employment is normal for men

especially construction, which was widely quoted as a potential pace-

setter for the male manual labour market there are limitations on the

worker's mobility. The general system of hiring labour through agents,

who will each generally have a pool of workers (of specialised or varied

trades) gives the latter an interest in attaching themselves regularly to

a particular sub-contractor. Both in construction and other industries,

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