Town planners mustn't overlook jobs
Bernard Chan says long commutes put a strain on finances and well-being
Hong Kong's unemployment rate is less than 4per cent. We are lucky: in the US it is over 8per cent, and in Greece and Spain it is approaching shocking 20-25per cent levels.
Even so, joblessness is a problem for parts of our community. These include some ethnic minorities, new mainland immigrants and people (often from those two groups) who live relatively long distances from the core urban areas.
I recently visited the Labour Department's one-stop employment and training centre at Tin Shui Wai, in the New Territories. The facilities are excellent. People can browse job openings on computers. Information is available in a variety of languages, and there are specialised services for the middle-aged, ethnic minorities and other groups.
Most important of all, perhaps, was the feel of the centre; it is an environment designed to treat people with dignity and give them confidence.
As our unemployment figures suggest, it should not be too hard to find a job, especially given the opportunities for training available at the job centres. Yet the problem remains, and to some extent it is literally built into our city's structure.
The new towns like Tin Shui Wai are a long way from most of the jobs, and to people on low wages, the costs of travel can make all the difference between taking the job and rejecting it.