126 | Employment
working group under the board to deal with applications for labour importation under the Supplementary Labour Scheme.
Employment Services
The Labour Department provides a wide 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. Round-the-clock employment services are provided through the Interactive Employment Services (iES) website (www.jobs.gov.hk), which recorded over 940 million page views in 2008, or an average page view of 2.57 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. For major closure/redundancy cases, the department runs a hotline for enquiries and special counters at Job Centres to provide priority referral and job matching services to retrenched employees.
During the year, 168 740 job-seekers registered with the Labour Department. The number of private sector vacancies displayed by the Labour Department in 2008 rose to 671 770, or 20 per cent up on 2007. A job placement figure of 146 308 was achieved in 2008, 8 per cent higher than the 135 489 in 2007.
Employment Programme for the Middle-aged
Under the programme, employers who engage eligible middle-aged people and provide them on-the-job training are given a training allowance of $1,500 per month per trainee for up to three months by the Government. At year-end, 42 511 middle-aged job-seekers were employed under the programme.
Work Trial Scheme
In 2008, a total of 2 167 job-seekers, with exceptional difficulties finding jobs, took part in a work trial scheme run by the Government to help them find employment.
On completion of the one-month trial, each participant receives $5,000 from the Labour Department plus $500 from the organisation for which he or she worked.
Transport Support Scheme
A transport support scheme was launched in 2007 to provide time-limited transport subsidy to the unemployed, needing financial help, and to low-income workers. The subsidy is also given to the unemployed living in the four remote districts of Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, North and Islands to encourage them to look for jobs and continue working. The eligibility criteria were relaxed in July and the duration of subsidy extended to 12 months.
In addition, eligible applicants can claim an On-the-job Transport Allowance of $600 per month for up to 12 months and a Job Search Allowance of up to $600 on
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