TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 102

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business for more than 10 years. In a few higher-qualified occupations,

there appears to be at least the beginnings of an "educated unemployed"

problem: at the least, the width of present differentials among people

with higher-education or professional qualifications does not suggest

any great shortage of junior entrants to most of these.

40. All this is not to say that there have not been occasions when an

intense shortage of labour in particular sectors under boom conditions

has had a general effect on the Hong Kong labour market. Only that this

is far from being its normal condition. But how far does the picture of

a highly competitive market for labour apply on the employers' side?

At first sight, the diversity of wage-rates and associated welfare

provisions or fringe benefits to which I have already referred appears

to combine with the apparent fragmentation of employers' associations to

support this picture, suggesting an extremely uncoordinated complex of

divergent employer policies, each presumably designed to offer some

rival attraction to labour against the inducements of other firms. But

again there are substantial reservations to be made.

41. The typical employer answer to the question: "How are wages and

salaries fixed" is some variant of "we have to pay the going rate, which

is determined by labour and product market conditions". But this begs

the question of how "the going rate" itself emerges, suggesting that each

employer adjusts wages simply to correct deficiencies or surpluses of

the particular kind of labour he requires. Again, there are cases where

the immediate labour supply situation is the major pressure on particular

firms. But this does not appear to be the general situation.

By and

large, "the going rate" (or rather, the typical annual adjustment to

wages) seems to emerge as a process, not quite of collusion, but

certainly of interchange and mutual understanding between employers.

42. First, it has already been noted that collective organisation

amongst employers (though not necessarily as employers' associations

proper) is considerably more comprehensive than amongst workers. In all

those with which we held discussions, there was some procedure (such as

a special labour committee) to consider labour problems, and it was

generally accepted that this included at least an "exchange of views" on

wages, though only the Employers' Federation itself gave formal advice

to members on request. At the level of individual industries, such as

the utilities and spinning, it was evident that the "exchange" included

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