TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 130

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7.

choice is much reduced by age, given the present pattern of labour

demand in HK old people have to take whatever work they can get,

at the lowest wages. There are many rigidities inhibiting labour

mobility in HK and the 1974-75 recession must have enhanced them,

by injecting greater uncertainty into the minds of workers.

Segmentation of the labour market:

It must be clear by now that labour is far from homogeneous,

despite the low skill requirements of HK industry. Age and sex are

fundamental variables stratifying the labour force and hence

segmenting the labour market. It was common up to 1974 to speak of

full employment and labour scarcity in HK, a tendency which has

revived now that unemployment has returned to pre-1974 levels. But

it is obvious that, while there may be shortages of certain kinds

of labour in some industries, it is possible for considerable

surpluses to exist elsewhere. The employability of youths lacking

secondary education is much lower than that of their female

equivalents, for example. Older people cannot get jobs demanding

high-speed, precision work. The family system and the non-wage

sector may conceal unemployment, containing as they do men and

women who no longer seek wage employment because there are too

many others like them in the same position (thereby driving wages

down to levels unacceptable to all but the most desperate).

Moreover, as long as labour force participation rates are dynamic

(children stay at school longer, women move in and out of domestic

unpaid employment, etc), it is nonsense to talk of 'full employment',

as do England and Rear. The articulation of the wage labour market

with other sectors employing labour needs further study.

The interesting questions, which we cannot begin to

Why do manufacturing

even when there are pools

Snippets of answers are

here, are: What are the long-term rigidities preventing HK's

labour force from converting surpluses in stagnant sectors into an

available supply for booming industries?

employers persist in hiring young girls,

of labour ready to be tapped elsewhere?

contained in the notes. At this stage it is sufficient to point

out that the myth of labour market freedom is a convenient

rationalisation of social neglect for those who do not wish to

perceive the unfreedom, inequality and exploitation which mark

the lives of many of HK's workers. It is for this reason that the