Trainees' airport job hopes dashed
Sixty-nine workers who retrained after the Airport Authority asked for electricians have failed to get jobs with it.
The authority told the Employees' Retraining Board last year it would need 'tens of skilled electricians' for work on the new airport, said Wan Koon-sun, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong and Kowloon Electrical Engineering and Appliances Trade Workers Union. But of the 69 who completed the one-month course, not one was given a job at the airport, said Mr Wan. Nineteen got jobs elsewhere.
'The worst thing is that their wages have been cut,' Mr Wan told Legco's manpower panel. 'They are only getting $8,500, $3,500 less [than at the airport].' Mr Wan was worried the quality of retraining programmes would be damaged if the board only subsidised courses according to the number of trainees getting jobs, as the Government had proposed.
'If similar cases happen again, I wonder whether we will have sufficient funding to run retraining programmes for workers,' he said.
The manpower panel was hearing views on whether the Employees' Retraining Scheme was adequate.
No one from the Airport Authority was available for comment last night.
