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Employment

may enrol on its full-time, placement-tied courses and half-day or evening generic skills training courses or courses under the Skills Upgrading Scheme Plus. There are about 700 courses covering 28 industries. Every year, the board offers around 130,000 training places to upgrade the skills of in-service workers, and to help the unemployed and those seeking job changes. re-enter the labour market.

Dedicated Training

The board provides dedicated training and employment support to young people, new arrivals, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, those recovered from work injuries, rehabilitated former drug abusers and former offenders.

Employment Support

The board operates Smart Living, Smart Baby Care and Smart Starter schemes to provide trainees with registration, referral and follow-up services for relevant job vacancies. It operates service centres in Kowloon East and Tin Shui Wai, as well as service spots in Kwai Tsing, Tsuen Wan and elsewhere, to provide residents in relevant districts with training support services.

Labour Relations

The Labour Department provides a voluntary conciliation service to help employers and employees outside the government resolve disputes and claims. It also publicises the Employment Ordinance and promotes good people management practices.

The department runs nine industry-based tripartite committees to foster industry-level dialogue and cooperation among employers, employees and the government. These committees, covering catering, cement and concrete, construction, hotel and tourism, logistics, printing, property management, retail, and theatre, provide effective forums for members to discuss issues of common concern to their industries.

The department also works with 18 human resources managers' clubs to encourage members to maintain effective employer-employee communication and adopt good people management practices in their organisations and sectors.

During the year, the department handled 57 trade disputes and 14,666 employment claims. In cases where the department provided a conciliation service, more than 70 per cent were settled. It also handled three strikes which resulted in a loss of 166.5 working days in the year, or an average loss of 0.05 working days per 1,000 salaried employees and wage earners, one of the lowest in the world.

Trade Unions

The Registry of Trade Unions administers the Trade Unions Ordinance and promotes good and responsible trade union management. Once registered, a trade union becomes a body corporate and enjoys immunity from certain civil suits.

In 2017, 13 new unions were registered, bringing the number of registered trade unions to 899, comprising 836 employee unions, 14 employers' associations, 38 mixed organisations of

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