ENG-1964 — Page 43

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EMPLOYMENT

Territories is a recent development. In December 1964 the Labour Department recorded 653 factories in the New Territories with a total labour force of 49,959. The bulk of the industrial population is concentrated in the new town of Tsuen Wan, which is being built up as a balanced community to include factories, housing, recreational facilities and services. This town contains many modern textile factories as well as others producing metal, enamelware, plastic and many other products, including a resettlement factory specially constructed for the local cottage industry of silk weaving. Boat building yards from the urban area are being moved to nearby Tsing Yi Island. Castle Peak in the Yuen Long District, chosen as a site for a further new town, already contains a nucleus of industry including textile and metal factories; sawmills are also being resited here. In the Tai Po District there are textile factories in Sha Tin and a carpet factory at Tai Po, and tanneries and other miscellaneous industries near Shek Wu Hui. Mining and quarrying also employ a number of workers, the largest undertaking being the iron mine at Ma On Shan with a labour force of some 563.

Traditional village industries still provide a certain amount of employment in the old market towns of the New Territories such as Cheung Chau, Yuen Long, and Tai Po. Examples are the prepara- tion of salt-fish, fish-paste, beancurd, soya sauce and preserved fruits; the burning of coral and sea-shells for lime; brick m̃anu- facture; boat-building and repairing. However the intensification of agriculture and the spread of industry have led to the rapid growth of these New Territories townships, where increasing num- bers of people are now employed in commerce, retail trade and hawking, and in transport and other services. Public and private building development is also taking place in the New Territories on an increasing scale, and employs a large labour force.

Since the foundation of Hong Kong over a century ago, New Territories people have emigrated abroad for employment, originally mainly as crew members on British and foreign ships. Some have settled down in foreign parts, many in America, but the majority return eventually to their native villages. In recent years, there has been a very marked movement of young men going to Britain to work in Chinese restaurants and at the present time there are believed to be about 2,000 Chinese restaurants in Britain employing something like 30,000 Hong Kong workers, the majority from the