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Employment

Employees Retraining Board

The Employees Retraining Board is a statutory body set up under the Employees Retraining Ordinance. Through about 80 appointed training bodies that operate a total of around 350 training centres, the board provides market-driven training and support to help the unemployed and those seeking job changes re-enter the labour market. People aged 15 or above with up to sub-degree education may enrol on its full-time placement-tied courses, half- day or evening generic skills training courses, and Skills Upgrading courses. The board offers around 140,000 training places annually under its 700 courses straddling 28 industries. The training and support also cater for the needs of different social groups, including young people, new arrivals, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, people recovered from work injuries, rehabilitated former drug abusers and former offenders. In October the board, entrusted by the government, launched the Love Upgrading Special Scheme for employees affected by the economic downturn to upgrade their skills with the aim of rejoining the job market as soon as possible.

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 human resource 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 human resource management practices in their organisations and sectors.

In 2019, the department handled 76 trade disputes and 13,755 employment claims. In cases where the department provided a conciliation service, more than 70 per cent were settled.

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.

During the year, 25 new unions were registered, bringing the number of registered trade unions to 928, comprising 866 employee unions, 12 employers' associations, 39 mixed organisations of employees and employers, and 11 trade union federations. The yearly average of the declared membership of employee unions over the five years from 2014 to 2018 was about 880,000. During the same period, the trade union participation rate, meaning the proportion of the total declared membership of employee unions to the total number of salaried employees and wage earners, was 24.5 per cent.

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