TNAG-0650-FCO40-798-Study-of-labour-relations-in-Hong-Kong-by-Professor-H.-A.-Tu-1977 — Page 106

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(or "net advantages") of alternative jobs even apart from the wide

range of wage rates for comparable occupations which is apparent from

official surveys*. In our first sample of factory workers, over 40% were

paid on piece-rates, which are generally not standardised between firms

and but fixed at the workplace by supervisors, 34% received incentive bonuses

ん

(the two figures overlap) the earnings yield of which would often be

hard for the individual to judge without direct experience. In

particular, there is a variety of other bonus systems in common use, and

much less standardisation in respect both of these and other fringe

benefits than one would find, say, in a European industrial society.

Tables 4 and 5 in Appendix B gives some indication both of the wide

range of these which might be supplied, and of their possible variation

between employers - for instance, in the Tables' demonstration of a

general difference between larger and smaller firms. And in this case,

the sample covers a limited economic range only the major manufacturing

industries:much more variation would be found in employment as a whole.

While even the most common of bonuses, the so-called "thirteenth month"

or Chinese New Year Bonus, is often unpredictable, since many firms vary

this substantially according to their current prosperity.

36.

For the employees population as a whole, it is evident that

despite the comparative youth of the Hong Kong labour force, the picture

of labour instability is greatly overdrawn. In our second, larger survey

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

.....

Thus the last report of the Labour Commissioner quoted $14 - $40 as

the range of daily wages for semi-skilled manufacturing workers

in September 1975.