A cap of 100,000 should be placed on the number of foreign domestic helpers allowed to work in Hong Kong at any one time, unionist legislators said yesterday. But Secretary for Manpower and Education Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun said there was no immediate plan to impose such a limit, although she admitted there would be 140,000 unskilled local workers in five years' time who could fill the jobs. At a meeting of Legco's manpower panel yesterday, legislators urged the Government to review the policy of importing foreign domestic helpers, saying the 230,000-plus foreign maids were depriving locals of jobs. Li Fung-ying, of the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions, said a government scheme to train local people to work as maids had missed the point, as they could not compete with foreign workers in terms of wages and hours. 'We have hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers and there is no limit to the importation of foreign domestic workers. Why is the Government not reviewing it?' she said. A review of the policy, which has not changed since 1970, was supported by Leung Fu-wah of the Federation of Trade Unions. But Mrs Law said: 'The need for foreign domestic helpers is determined by supply and demand and we will get work for local maids step by step.' Legislators also criticised a proposal to force foreign domestic helpers to live at their employers' homes as unrealistic. Lee Cheuk-yan, of the Confederation of Trade Unions, said: 'That would only force maids working for small families to sleep in kitchens.' The Asian Migrant Centre also condemned the live-in arrangements as discriminatory and picking on foreign domestic helpers who were 'easy targets'.
