Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun says bringing in overseas workers had ‘little impact on movement of our overall labour market’
Hong Kong’s labour chief has stressed that importing workers contributed very little to the 30-month-high unemployment rate recorded for March to May, while highlighting measures introduced to protect residents from being replaced by cheaper overseas candidates.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said on Wednesday that the city’s 3.5 per cent unemployment rate for the latest rolling three-month period, the highest since the October to December stretch in 2022, had little to do with the imported labour scheme.
“The number of foreign workers who came to Hong Kong through the scheme is around 55,000, which is less than 1 per cent of our workforce,” he told a radio programme.
“So they have had little impact on the movement of our overall labour market.”
