ENG-1967 — Page 54

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EMPLOYMENT

industry, which also employs a large number of out-workers, remained the second largest employer.

During the year under review, it appeared that the demand for labour in manufacturing industries exceeded the supply. There were 11,232 factories on record in the Labour Department at the end of the year, many of them small concerns. Of these, 7,309 were registered under the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordin- ance. The tables at Appendix III show developments in main industrial groups and selected industries.

Industry in the New Territories is a comparatively recent develop- ment-apart from traditional trades in the main market towns and some pre-war textile factories in Tsuen Wan. In December, 1967, the Labour Department had on record 955 factories in the New Territories with a labour force of 63,513. The bulk of this industrial population is concentrated in the new township of Tsuen Wan which is designed as a balanced community and includes factories, housing, recreational facilities, services and other amenities. It has many modern textile factories, and others producing metalware, enamelware, glassware and plastics. There is also a government- owned flatted factory provided to meet the special requirements of small scale silk weavers. Castle Peak and Sha Tin, two other areas in the New Territories, have been selected as sites for developing other large self-contained townships and work on the first stage of the development of Castle Peak has begun. There is some mining, mostly on a small scale employing a labour force of 473, of whom 461 work at an iron mine at Ma On Shan. There are also several stone quarries with a total labour force of 898.

In many old market towns and fishing settlements in the New Territories, traditional village industries still provide employment in the preparation of salt-fish, fish-paste, bean-curd, soya sauce and preserved fruits, the burning of coral and sea-shells for lime, brick- manufacture, boat building and repairing.

Although no current figures on unemployment are available, the increase in the number of people employed in registered and re- corded factories and industrial undertakings since 1966 suggests that the number out of work at the end of the year was not any greater than at the time of the 1966 by-census when 22,930 persons claimed to be unemployed, and 31,450 stated they were looking