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Jake Van Der Kamp

'Workers were less optimistic about their job prospects despite the economic boom, according to the results of a telephone poll released by the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood.'

SCMP, February 21

WELL, WHAT ELSE would you expect from this political party? Can you really picture these people admitting that wages are rising, job security is improving and workers have grounds to feel happier about their prospects?

May I live to see the day. Things on the job front continue to improve steadily but the message from the ADPL is still that fewer workers see bright prospects or expect pay rises.

According to our report: 'The group said the middle-aged and the less educated workers were being marginalised in the economic restructuring. It urged the government to create more jobs for them.'

I see. So it is the middle-aged who are being marginalised, is it? Could someone please explain then why the unemployment rate for people under the age of 19 is 18.6 per cent at present while for people over the age of 60 it is 2.2 per cent? Is this why the number of unemployed persons aged from 50 to 59 has fallen from 50,000 to 32,000 over the past three years?

And is it meant to surprise me that less educated workers are marginalised? Did my mother never tell me that this was one of the big reasons she wanted me in school? Did yours never tell you so?

As to that urging the government to create more jobs, the urgency has already been addressed and by the private sector, not by government. Since the end of the Sars epidemic, Hong Kong payrolls have risen by 348,000 jobs. Few economies in the world can boast an 11 per cent job gain over so short a period.

But I think the ADPL has missed something here. If it wishes to complain about workers getting short shrift from employers, it should make that complaint on behalf of women.

The bar chart reveals the story. It shows you income bands for male and female workers as a percentage of total employment as of September last year, the latest date for which figures are available.

Thus the first red bar on the left shows you that 6 per cent of all employed men earn less than HK$5,000 a month while the blue bar shows you that 26 per cent of all employed women fall in this category.

It is an enormous difference and this is the only category in which it is true. In all the higher categories of pay there is a greater proportion of men than of women, progressively so in fact.

What could account for this? The unemployment rate for women is actually lower overall than it is for men. It is so even among people who have had no schooling. Thus it cannot be true that women are paid less because there are proportionately more of them looking for work and employers can more easily dictate terms.

Nor can age really be a factor. Men over 50 account for a greater proportion of the male workforce than women over 50 do of the female workforce. If age discrimination brought down pay levels then men would be paid less than women.

Educational attainment is also out as a cause. There is very little difference between men and women in the workforce in terms of the level of education achieved. In fact women with tertiary-level degrees account for a slightly greater proportion of the female workforce than men with a similar level of education account for of the male workforce.

I do not claim to make a startling revelation by saying that there is sex discrimination in the Hong Kong workforce. All I say is that if the ADPL wants a worthwhile cause to champion it can do better with this one than make unlikely claims that overall pay and job security conditions are deteriorating at the moment.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE CANDIDATE Alan Leong Kah-kit takes issue with me. 'I do have policies,' he protests in an e-mail sent in response to a column on Friday in which I wrote that we all have long known where he stands on universal suffrage and could we have some nitty-gritty, please, on what he would do in power.

Okay, I have those policy statements now - www.competitionforce.hk - and in some detail too, I see. I take it back, Alan. I only wish you had posted them more prominently. And now let's see you talk the nitty gritty as well as write it. It remains no news that you favour greater use of the ballot box.



ADPL could well do with a more worthwhile cause to champion