For Immediate Release
Hong Kong has been able to maintain its position as a leading international business hub thanks to its entrepreneurial and flexible workforce. Standardizing working hours for all sectors will exacerbate the acute labour shortage, increase SMEs’ operating costs and constrain Hong Kong’s economic development.
Due to these negative side effects, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC) wrote in its submission to Dr Leong Che-hung, Chairperson of the Standard Working Hours Committee, that the Chamber opposes legislating standard working hours.
Chamber Chairman C K Chow stressed that legislation will not solve the problem of long working hours. It will also risk constraining market mechanisms and, over the long term, undermine Hong Kong’s competitiveness.
He pointed out that compared to the statutory minimum wage, the impact of standard working hours will be extremely far-reaching as it will impact Hong Kong’s 3 million-plus workforce, including low-income employees, as it is a very complicated issue. Besides conducting extensive consultations with all stakeholders, the Government should also carry out a comprehensive regulatory impact assessment to study the economic impact under different scenarios, including the ripple effect that it would have on different sectors.
The 300,000-plus SMEs in Hong Kong currently account for more than 98% of local businesses, employing over 1.2 million staff. Chamber CEO Shirley Yuen said that with small companies already struggling to find staff, on top of dealing with increasing costs and cash-flow constraints, standard working hours legislation will deliver a double blow to SMEs.
When the economy is strong, companies may struggle to meet the requirements of standard working hours. However, when the economy goes south and businesses start struggling to survive, employers will not have the flexibility to allocate their manpower effectively due to legal constraints. Companies may have little choice but to lay off staff or even close down. Consequently, both employers and employees would suffer.
Yuen stressed that increasing our workforce -- not legislating standard working hours -- will address the labour shortage and the problem of long working hours. The experiences of other economies show that standard working hours generally forces employers to hire more part-time or casual employees, which will fragment jobs and exacerbate underemployment. The Chamber does not believe that introducing legislation for standard working hours will solve the issue of long working hours.
She suggested that the Government should uphold the principle of a free-market economy, on which Hong Kong’s success has been built. Rather than standardizing working hours through legislation, employers and employees should draw up contracts based on the demands of individual sectors, job requirements, duties, working hours and arrangements for over-time pay.
_________________________________________________________________________________________