TNAG-0647-FCO40-795-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H-A-Turn-1977 — Page 83

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3. As regards item (d) of my terms of reference, the note that follows

is very much an interim one, in two senses. In the first place the

periods available for the study and the timing required for its

submission were such that I have been able neither to discuss its

conclusions with those (both official and otherwise) who have helped me

with views and information in Hong Kong; nor, particularly, to consult

my two principal collaborators, Prof Hart and Dr Fosh, in its drafting.

(Indeed, I am at time of writing not yet in possession of more than very

preliminary and roughly-calculated results from the second major survey

of Hong Kong employees which Dr Fosh organised and supervised for us.)

I therefore attach as Appendices two of their major contributions to the

study, Prof Hart's analysis of the Hong Kong labour market, and

Dr Fosh's report on her first pilot survey of 100 Hong Kong factory

workers*, both as references for my own draft and in case there should

be points at which they might feel that my interpretation differs from

that which they would have made.

4. But secondly, and especially, Hong Kong is not an "undeveloped" or

"developing" economy in the normal sense (where one is confronted with a

situation which is, at least in an economic sense, comparatively simple)

but a relatively rich industrial and commercial city-state. Some

indications of this, for instance, are the high "labour force participa-

tion rate" (54% of the population of working age at the last Census in

1971 when the total population was about 4 million) and an employee

labour force which is currently probably about 1,500,000, of which over

600,000 are in registered industrial establishments. It is also

significant that the preliminary results of our own survey suggest the

proportion of white-collar workers in the employee labour force to be

about 35%, which is comparable with that in the highly industrialised

economies of the West.

5. At the same time, it is an economic society with very special

characteristics, which add to the complexity normal to industrial

cultures. It has, if not an absolutely limited, at least very rigidly

limited and confined supply of land, and virtually no raw materials of

its own. It is almost totally dependent on exports and imports. Its

industrial composition is unbalanced, being still heavily concentrated on

* But without the detailed analytical Tables, which are necessarily

extensive.

/the