ENG-1965 — Page 39

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Employment

OF slightly more than 14 million people at work in Hong Kong, over 500,000 are engaged in manufacturing industries. This is the conclusion reached from a projection of figures recorded in the 1961 census. At that time, 1,211,999 persons were described as 'economically active' and 1,191,099 claimed to be working; of these, 57,400 were counted as employers and 123,861 were working on their own account.

The general employment pattern in the 1961 census showed that over half of the working population was engaged in construc- tion, manufacturing, mining, quarrying and the utilities, about 22 per cent in various types of services, 11 per cent in commerce, 7 per cent in communications and 7 per cent in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Based on this pattern the projected employment figures at the end of 1965 were: Manufacturing 607,300; services 339,400; commerce 167,400; construction 127,900; agriculture, forestry and fishing 112,600; communications 111,100; public utilities 24,400; mining and quarrying 10,700. There are also some 21,300 in various other forms of employment, making a total of 1,522,100 employed.

This projection, although an estimate, gives a broader picture than that available from actual statistics collected by the Labour Department, because these are confined to voluntary returns from factories and undertakings. As such they do not include out-workers, persons employed in cottage industries, the construction industry, agriculture and fishing, or those employed in unrecorded factories and undertakings. Neither do they include persons employed in commerce and the retail and catering trades. The returns show that the number of persons directly employed in the factories and industrial undertakings concerned reached a total of 370,738 in 1965, an increase of 20,564 over 1964. Those engaged in weaving, spinning, knitting and the manufacture of garments and made-up textile goods accounted for a total of 154,605 and remained the largest section of the labour force. The plastic industry, in which