ENG-2008 — Page 175

Employment | 127

a reimbursement basis. At year's end, the scheme had received 27 081 applications for which $203 million was earmarked for successful applicants and $58.10 million was paid out.

Helping the Disabled Find Jobs

The Labour Department's Selective Placement Division helps people with disabilities to integrate into the community through open employment. It provides free employment counselling and placement services to people with hearing or visual impairment, the physically handicapped, chronically ill, mentally handicapped, ex-mentally ill and people with specific learning difficulties and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorders. The division launched a series of events in 2008 to help these people secure jobs. It registered 3 327 such job seekers and found work for 2 490 of them during the year. The placement rate was 74.8 per cent.

The Labour Department has been running a Work Orientation and Placement Scheme since 2005 to improve the employment prospects of people with disabilities by giving them pre-employment training. Employers participating in the scheme receive a monthly allowance from the Labour Department, equal to 50 per cent of what they pay the disabled employee each month (subject to a maximum of $3,000) for up to three months. By the end of the year, 1 236 people had undergone pre-employment training and 1 223 had found work.

Employment Agencies

The Labour Department's Employment Agencies Administration enforces Part XII of the Employment Ordinance and the Employment Agency Regulations which empower the department to inspect employment agencies to ensure they comply with the law, investigate complaints against the agencies and carry out other watchdog roles. It issued 1949 employment agency licences and refused one application during the year.

Preparing People for Work

Youth Employment Support

The Labour Department set up two youth employment resource centres called 'Youth Employment Start' in December 2007 and March 2008 respectively to provide one-stop career advisory and support services to young people aged between 15 and 29. The centres provide career assessments, career guidance, value-added training, support services for the self-employed, and labour market information to help young people plan their careers, enhance their job prospects, and lend them support in carrying out their own businesses.

By the end of 2008, the two centres provided services to 63 636 young people.

Skills Upgrading Scheme

A $400-million Skills Upgrading Scheme (SUS), set up in 2001 to provide focused skills training for in-service workers to adapt to the changing economic environment, continues to work well. By the end of 2008, more than 11 000 classes