One thousand job applicants, many with university degrees and years of work experience, queued for up to four hours yesterday at Hunghom Pier to apply for 234 temporary vacancies at the Winter Carnival. The queue wound around the entire length of the bus terminus outside the pier. Many lined up for hours before the recruitment exercise - featuring on-the-spot applications, interviews and appointments - began. The jobs, due to last 36 days, range from cashiers to cleaners, site monitors and first aid workers, and pay between $275 to $600 a day. One hundred were hired on the spot. Many applicants offered to work for the duration of the carnival - to be held at Hunghom - without a break. First-year university student Nick Chan Chi-him, 21, who studies information systems at the University of New South Wales in Australia, was the first to arrive and was immediately hired as a site monitor. 'Both my parents were recently laid off and I'm in town for my vacation and wanted to make some money to help out with tuition bills,' Mr Chan said. 'I applied for a few other posts but got no replies. Then I read about this in the newspaper and thought I would give it a shot.' Among the hordes of older applicants was a woman in her forties recently laid off from her job as an accounting officer at a merchant bank. She said it would be difficult for an older woman to secure a job amid the economic downturn. More than 500 people queued during the first recruitment exercise for the carnival last Saturday, when only 66 were hired. Carnival managing director Hans Lodders said organisers were thrilled with the response, adding the high quality of candidates would improve the standard of the event. 'We all know the overall economic situation is not so fantastic - this is absolutely a reflection of that,' he said. 'But we will not lower the wages just because the supply is high - that is a matter of respect.' One man was cruising the queues handing out flyers to encourage young people to be more creative in their search for employment. He claimed many jobs were available but people were too lazy to find them. 'There are a lot of fish out there - you've just got to know how to fish,' he said. Asked what the job opportunities were, he held up a photograph frame and replied: 'You could sell these for people to frame their MPF [Mandatory Provident Fund] certificates in.' ravina@scmp.com
