Rethinking labour scheme

THE Government is rightly reluctant to draw too close a link between the importation of labour and rising unemployment. Nevertheless, the Government's reaction to recent rises in unemployment is a recognition there is no room for complacency. Last month it announced there would be no new imported labour quotas until it had conducted a review of the scheme. Yesterday, it brought the review forward to October from the end of the year, expanded its job placement scheme and promised to tailor retraining schemes more carefully to match skills with the requirements of a service economy.

These measures are useful. But they do not adequately answer complaints that local workers are being laid off or rejected for jobs in favour of younger, cheaper but equally unskilled imported labour.

Up to a point, that phenomenon is neither surprising nor particularly damaging. This is a capitalist economy in which local workers have simply priced themselves out of the market. But the purpose of the imported labour scheme has never officially been to reduce wages. Quotas were introduced to ensure workers were brought in only where there were unfillable vacancies.

If the Government is turning a blind eye to the importation of workers for jobs that could be filled by local workers at the going rate, but with more social protection, then it can rightly be accused of conniving in what the Europeans now call 'social dumping'. It is benefiting the Chinese and other economies at the expense of local jobs. The Governor has said he will consider bringing in employees' representatives to help monitor the scheme. The sooner he does the better for all.