ENG-1970 — Page 45

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EMPLOYMENT

persons aged 16 and 17 years to eight hours and twenty minutes a day and 50 hours a week. In addition to providing for maximum daily hours, regulations made under the ordinance provide for limited overtime, weekly rest days, and rest periods for women and young persons.

Young persons aged 14 and 15 years may work only eight hours a day in industry with a break of one hour after five hours continuous work. Children under the age of 14 are prohibited from working in industry and no woman nor young person is allowed to work at night or underground in any mine, quarry or in any industrial undertaking involving a tunnelling operation. Regula- tions under the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance also provide for pre-employment medical examination of those employed- underground or in tunnelling operations and for the periodical medical examination of those under 21 years of age employed underground.

Because of a continuing shortage of labour, a few large factories engaged in cotton spinning were authorised to employ women at night, but permission was restricted to those concerns which were able to comply with stringent conditions. The effects of this experimental concession were being closely watched in anticipation of a review in early 1971 of the policy governing night work for

women.

There are no legal restrictions on hours of work for men. Most men employed in industry work 10 hours a day or less. Government employees and those in concerns operating on western lines work eight hours. The restrictions on the hours of work for women, which were first introduced in January 1959, have resulted in a decrease in the number of hours worked by men working alongside women in the same concern. By December 1, 1970, 39 cotton spinning and silk weaving mills had introduced a system of three eight-hour daily shifts, cotton weaving mills were on either two or three shifts, and it was estimated that 35,779 men and 37,566 women were working eight hours a day. A rest period of one hour a day is customary throughout industry.

The Industrial Employment (Holidays with Pay and Sickness Allowance) Ordinance provides for six annual holidays to be

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