Care-home doors opening to 3,000 non-local staff

Leopold Chen

About 3,000 non-local staff could be imported to support the operation of care homes in the second quarter of next year, as the government yesterday announced the relaxation of recruitment rules for mainland workers.

A spokesman for the Labour and Welfare Bureau said that a special scheme for importing workers for residential care homes had been approved by the Executive Council.

"On the premise of safeguarding the employment priority for local workers, the special scheme will allow the importation of care workers for residential care homes for the elderly and for persons with disabilities on an appropriate scale, relax the ratio of local employees to imported care workers, and streamline the vetting procedures for applications," the spokesman said.

Under the scheme, private and self-financing care homes may apply to import one non-local care worker for every local employee recruited, while subvented homes and contract homes can apply for one supplementary non-local care worker for every two full-time local workers newly employed.

"The special scheme aims to provide greater flexibility and more streamlined procedures to import care workers to address the acute shortage of care workers in the RCH sector," the bureau said.

The press release says Hong Kong has 4,000 non-local care workers and the new scheme could expand this number to 7,000. The government projected about 4,500 vacancies for care workers in the next three years due to new care homes and additional residential care places under bought-place schemes.

"In other words, even if all the quotas under the special scheme are approved, it is estimated that at least 1,500 vacancies will have to be filled by local job seekers," it said.

"If factors such as the expansion of the sector and natural attrition of the current troop of care workers are taken into account, there will be even more employment opportunities for local job seekers."

To hire non-local staff, employers must prove that they have recruited local staff via channels designated by the director of social welfare, but the hiring has failed to meet the demand.

Meanwhile, positions under local recruitment must offer a salary not lower than that offered to imported care workers, while the salary of imported workers must not be less than the median wage of HK$14,150 a month for a care worker as compiled by the Census and Statistics Department.

The scheme is expected to be introduced next year.

Election Committee lawmaker Kingsley Wong Kwok, of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, said the government should prioritize increasing salaries for care workers to solve the problem of workforce shortage.

"Many care workers work 11 hours a day but are paid HK$14,000 a month, which is unreasonable," he said.

"The government should increase the minimum monthly wage of this industry to HK$20,000 a month to encourage more Hongkongers to join the promising trade.

"I hope grassroots workers are not always the ones sacrificed."

Labor sector lawmaker Chau Siu-chung was concerned that some care homes would prioritize hiring non-local workers to reduce operation costs, as their salaries should not be higher than local staff.

Speaking on a television program, a care-home operator named Poon said the scheme's quota of 3,000 is not enough to cope with the shortage faced by the industry.

"It is difficult to exhaust all 3,000 quotas in the short run as workers from the mainland do not necessarily want to work in Hong Kong," he said.

"In the coming year, there will be some new large-scale care-home projects commencing. The 3,000 imported workers may not meet the workforce demand."