Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) has no plans to lay off staff although the worst is yet to come for the Hong Kong economy, according vice-chairman and managing director Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong.
While Sun Hung Kai would not sack workers, Mr Kwok said the group still hoped to reduce staff numbers through natural attrition.
He said staff would be shuffled throughout the group, boosting numbers in the after-sale service division.
'There won't be any lay-offs or wage cuts in the engineering department,' Mr Kwok said yesterday.
'The total number of staff in our office is more or less the same as last year.
'The worst period will be the first half of the year. But it will get better later on. The external economic conditions are not worsening.'
Mr Kwok said the rising unemployment rate - which reached 6.1 per cent in the final quarter of last year, the highest since the Asian economic crisis - was having little effect on the property market as people still had enough savings to continue buying homes.
