EMPLOYMENT PLEDGES
Complete a study by next year on the best methods of forecasting which fields will hire the most workers in the next 10 years.
Allocate $176 million to the Vocational Training Council to bring information technology courses up to international standard by 2002.
Give the Employees Retraining Board $500 million to teach more unemployed adults new skills and to improve the quality of the courses. The new grant and existing money is expected to add 6,000 class places next year, bringing the total capacity to more than 80,000 places.
Unify the training council's two technical colleges and seven technical institutes by 2002 to form a single vocational training institution.
Enhance co-ordination among the training council, the board and the Labour Department so that a job-seeker going to look for vacancies with the department would be evaluated on his or her skills needs and referred to appropriate courses at the two training institutions.
Merge eight local employment service centres with eight labour relations service offices so that someone who has lost a job and is lodging a complaint against his or her boss can also receive help finding another job at the same office.
Add a team of 22 staff to help new immigrants find jobs.
Set up an office to provide a telephone job referral service to job-seekers.
A number of measures also were introduced to improve workplace safety.
