What difference will an increase to the minimum wage mean for the lowest-paid in Hong Kong?
As government-appointed Minimum Wage Commission continues six-week public consultation, calls grow for an increase that is ‘not an insult’
Yu Mei-wan rarely looks for a job far from her home in a Tai Po public housing estate so she can save money by walking to work and eating at home every day.
The 62-year-old shopping centre security guard earns the least her employer must pay since Hong Kong rolled out the Minimum Wage Ordinance in 2011. She fears her fate will be like the old women she sees collecting cardboard boxes on the streets to make a living.
“Setting the statutory minimum wage at HK$34.50 (US$4.40) an hour is an insult,” Yu said. “It means a worker can barely afford a meal at McDonald’s after an hour’s work.”
Minimum wage rise ‘will cost low-pay sectors HK$2.9 billion’
Yu, who since 2004 has been a member of the Buildings Management and Security Workers General Union – a branch of the Confederation of Trade Unions – has joined calls for a living wage for low-paid employees. The government-appointed Minimum Wage Commission is two weeks into a six-week public consultation on reviewing the bottom line pay rate.
Based on Oxfam Hong Kong’s 2016 calculations of monthly living costs for a two-person family, and taking into account the government’s consumer price index for poor families, the unions have said a living wage should be at least HK$42 per hour, or HK$9,828 (US$1,183) a month with 26 nine-hour working days.
As of May 2017, one-third of the workers in the city’s 15 lowest-paying sectors – about 278,500 people – were paid less than HK$42 per hour, including 23,900 security guards such as Yu, according to the commission.