ENG-2007 — Page 181

Employment | 133

Employment Services

The Labour Department provides a full range of free

full range of free employment and recruitment services to job-seekers and employers through a network of 12 Job Centres, a Telephone Employment Service Centre, a Central Recruitment Unit and a Job Vacancy Processing Centre. These centres provide facilities such as vacancy search terminals, telephones, fax machines and computers with internet connection to complete the job-hunting process under one roof. The department provides round- the-clock employment services through the Interactive Employment Services (IES) website (www.jobs.gov.hk), which recorded over 922 million page views in 2007, or an average page view of 2.53 million per day. The department also organises large- scale and district-based job fairs to help job-seekers find jobs and employers to recruit staff.

During the year, 182 069 job-seekers registered with the Labour Department. The number of private sector vacancies posted by the Labour Department in 2007 was an all-time high of 559 815, or 16.6 per cent up on 2006. A historic high job placement figure of 135 489 was achieved in 2007. This was 13.9 per cent higher than the 118 937 in 2006.

Employment Programme for the Middle-aged

The Employment Programme for the Middle-aged was launched in May 2003 to assist unemployed job-seekers aged 40 or above to secure employment. Under the scheme, employers who engage middle-aged people and give them on-the-job training receive from the Government a training allowance of $1,500 per month per trainee for up to three months. At year-end, a total of 36 256 middle-aged job-seekers were employed under the programme.

Work Trial Scheme

A Work Trial Scheme was launched in June 2005 to improve the employability of job-seekers who have special difficulties in securing jobs. There is no age limit for such applicants. On completion of the one-month trial, each participant receives $4,500 from the Labour Department plus $500 from the organisation for which he or she worked. By the end of 2007, 1 669 job-seekers were placed in work trials.

Transport Support Scheme

The one-year pilot Transport Support Scheme was launched in late June as one of the poverty alleviation measures to provide transport allowances to needy unemployed and low-income employees living in the four remote districts of Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, North and Islands to find jobs and work across districts. Under the scheme, time-limited transport allowance, namely Job Search Allowance (up to $600) and Cross-district Transport Allowance ($600 per month for up to six months) is made available to eligible applicants. By the end of 2007, the scheme had received 5 716 applications.