Unionist legislators yesterday criticised the Government's 32,000 job-creation target, saying it would not be met and many of the jobs already had been announced.
But Secretary for Education and Manpower Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun defended the extra jobs announced in the Policy Address, saying they were needed to help the unemployed.
Lawmaker Lau Chin-shek said that according to his calculations only 23,800 extra jobs would be created by 2003 under the plan. He said many jobs were simply to provide government services that already had been planned.
'If the Government does not put in more effort creating jobs and alleviating unemployment . . . [people] will have no confidence to face the winter,' he said.
Another unionist, Leung Yiu-chung, said the Government was playing with numbers to deceive the public.
Secretary-general of the Confederation of Trade Unions Lee Cheuk-yan said statistics supplied by a senior official showed the Government had only set aside an extra $2 billion to create jobs - estimated by Mr Lee to create about 1,000 jobs.