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Employment

Employment Services

The Labour Department provides free employment and recruitment services to job-seekers and employers through 13 job centres, three recruitment centres for the catering, retail and construction industries, a Telephone Employment Service Centre and a Job Vacancy Processing Centre. Round-the-clock employment services are available through an Interactive Employment Service website and its mobile application. In 2017, the website recorded an average of around 580,000 page views per day, while its mobile app registered about 430,000 daily hits.

The department offers special help to job-seekers through initiatives that include the Employment Programme for the Middle-aged, Work Trial Scheme, Work Orientation and Placement Scheme for job-seekers with disabilities, Youth Employment and Training Programme, and Youth Employment Start.

The department also organises large-scale, district-based and thematic job fairs. For major closure or retrenchment cases, it will set up a telephone hotline and special counters at job centres to provide priority job referral services for affected workers.

In 2017, the department registered 49,233 job-seekers and made over 154,000 job placements. It recorded 1,419,270 private-sector vacancies, 5.3 per cent more than in 2016.

Employment Programme for the Middle-aged

Employers who engage eligible people aged 40 or above and give them on-the-job training get a training allowance of up to $3,000 per month per employee for three to six months. In 2017, 2,642 middle-aged or elderly job-seekers were employed under this programme.

Work Trial Scheme

Each participant who completes a one-month work trial receives $7,600 from the department, of which $500 is paid by the organisation in which the participant served. In 2017, 173 people with difficulties in finding jobs took part in the trials.

Work Incentive Transport Subsidy Scheme

This scheme helps low-income earners reduce their cost of travelling to and from work and encourages them to secure and stay in employment. In 2017, 44,172 applicants received the subsidy.

People with Disabilities

The department helps people with disabilities who are fit for open employment to seek jobs. It provides free employment counselling and placement services to people who are formerly mentally ill or have conditions such as hearing or visual impairment, physical handicap, chronic illness, autism, intellectual disability, specific learning difficulties and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. In 2017, the department registered 2,833 job-seekers with disabilities and secured 2,203 placements.

The Work Orientation and Placement Scheme improves employment opportunities for people with disabilities by paying an allowance to encourage employers to provide jobs and

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