Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has announced she and all 59 politically appointed officials and non-official members of the Executive Council will take a pay freeze until next June.

The freeze comes after an April announcement by her of a 10 percent pay cut for herself, 16 principal officials and 16 non-official Exco members for a year with immediate effect to "go through the hard times with citizens."

Despite a salary increase of 2 percent proposed this year for politically appointed officials, including undersecretaries and political assistants, Lam said she and her team have decided not to take a pay rise in the coming 12 months but will stick with the 10 percent pay cut.

This means Lam's salary will remain at HK$390,000, compared to HK$434,000 before her pay cut in April.

The government said last week all 72,500 civil servants will have their pay frozen, sparking fears of layoffs and whether it faces financial issues.

But Lam said there would be no layoffs.

"Although we will face a huge obstacle in our public finances, we have no plans for layoffs or to encourage voluntary resignations," she said.

"Compared to more than 10 years ago, we have entered a retirement peak for civil servants. We can slow down our recruitment rather than asking colleagues to resign."

On the Employment Support Scheme to subsidize businessmen and the self-employed, Lam said 148,000 applications have been submitted by employers and 194,000 by self-employed.

The first batch of 25,500 employers, including 24,952 SME owners that employ fewer than 50 staff, will receive subsidies amounting to HK$4.8 billion by Friday.

Lam said 270,000 companies are eligible for the subsidy, while HK$81 billion has been earmarked for the scheme.

Lam also announced HK$10 billion worth of new anti-epidemic fund measures to support recruitment agencies and construction, laundry, dish-washing and car-repair sectors.

She said these sectors were not covered in the first two rounds of fund measures but the government "wants to support them with the same attitude and spirit."

The government will relax the ceiling for the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and extend the Employees Retraining Board's program for unemployed and underemployed to 200,000 low-income families.

The government has opened 5,000 summer internship vacancies for university students.

Lam widens pay squeeze to exco 59