Citing reports showing nearly 76% of menial
jobs go to ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, a group mainly comprising Pakistanis
and Nepalese protested outside the Legislative Council on Feb. 24 against the
inequality in employment access.
The protest by the AIM
Group which coincided with the budget presentation by Financial Secretary John
Tsang, was meant to call government attention to their plight. “Today we
gathered in front of the LegCo to urge the government to prompt amelioration
for employment and retraining policies among ethnic minorities,” AIM said.
Citing an Employee
Retraining Board report, AIM said that due to the language barrier, 75.8% of
ethnic minorities in Hong Kong do menial jobs, compared with 19.5% of their
Chinese counterparts.
The latest report on Poverty Situation on
Ethnic Minorities shows 35-45% of Pakistanis, Nepalese, Thais and Indonesians
were engaged in elementary occupations, and about 60% of them earned less than
the median income.
What’s worse is that
50.2% of the Pakistanis earn lower than half of the median wage. “Ethnic
minorities are always at a disadvantage in their workplaces, particularly here
in Hong Kong. They do not only suffer difficulties in Chinese language ability
but they are relegated to doing menial jobs,” the group said.
AIM also cited a survey
in June-July last year by the Diocesan Pastoral Centre for Workers (Kowloon)
which showed that 125 ethnic minorities who looked for jobs in Hong Kong over
the past five years were successfully interviewed through convenient sampling.
To improve their
situation, the ethnic minorities proposed short-term measures that could enable
them to compete better for available jobs.
These include requiring
the Labour Department to provide EM jobseekers enhanced telephone
interpretation services within 20 minutes of their enquiry to prod frontline
staff to ensure equal access to the department’s services.
The ethnic minorities
also want the department to restore its job-matching service which was
cancelled in 2010, to encourage employers to consider EM jobseekers, follow up
their progress and match vacancies with their qualifications.
AIM said the Centre’s
survey showed that interview arrangements, vacancy information and career
counseling services are needed by a large number of EM jobseekers.
The Centre said survey
respondents lamented job opportunities lost due to discrimination, language and
cultural barriers, and a lack of information on the local job market.
It called for
improvement in the service through cultural sensitivity training and follow-up
of cases, suggesting right rapport and timely follow-up of the jobseekers are
key to a higher employability rate.
For the long term, AIM
want the Department to hire permanent EM staff to man a special counter that
will handle employment service for EM jobseekers.
“This move will hit two
the birds with one stone. On the one hand, it will solve the language barrier
that plagues the effectiveness of the service and, on the other hand, bridge
cultural gaps. This will cut down resources for interpretation services and
enable enhancement of the service,” AIM said.
