Hundreds of Hong Kong workers marked Labor Day yesterday with protests against job cuts and reduced working hours in a city battered by the global financial crisis.
Slammed by falling export demand and property prices, Hong Kong’s economy is likely to shrink between 2 percent and 3 percent this year, Financial Secretary John Tsang (曾俊華) has said.
The latest government figures show unemployment at 5.2 percent in the first quarter.
PHOTO: AFP
Two protests organized by pro-government and opposition labor unions yesterday each drew at least several hundred people. Chanting “protect employment” and “workers united,” demonstrators marched peacefully from the downtown financial Central district and Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay shopping district to government headquarters in Central.
Protest organizers urged the government to create more jobs, increase unemployment benefits and to set a minimum wage.
Grace Chan, a 41-year-old clerk, said she had been unemployed for four months after the trading company where she worked shut down.
“I’m worried it will take quite a long time before I find another job,” Chan said.
Shek Man-kong, a 60-year-old removalist, said the logistics company he worked for had scaled back his hours and that he was only working three or four days a week, earning HK$200 to HK$300 (US$26 to US$39) a day.
“Workers have no protection now. We are being exploited by the bosses,” Shek said.
Hong Kong Secretary for Labor and Welfare Matthew Cheung (張建宗) said in a statement that the territory’s legislature on Friday last week passed HK$12.6 billion (US$1.6 billion) worth of public works projects that will create 15,450 jobs.
He also said the government would introduce minimum wage legislation during the current legislative session.
“We will review our labor policies from time to time to keep abreast of the pace of Hong Kong’s socio-economic development and to take account of the needs of both employers and employees,” Cheung said.
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