Li & Fung to shed 150 HK jobs as US firms go down

Trading giant Li & Fung is planning to shed 150 local jobs this year, or about 4 per cent of its Hong Kong headcount, group managing director William Fung Kwok-lun said.

'That's nothing,' Mr Fung said. 'To put it in perspective, we lose about 700 people a year from natural attrition. This is really a storm in a teacup.'

Earlier reports that 1,000 employees would be let go were 'a gross exaggeration and, to some extent, misreporting', he said.

Of the 150 redundancies, about 60 had already been laid off.

Affected staff were expected to be mostly those servicing troubled US customers, like bankrupt department store chain Mervyns and retailer Goody's Family Clothing.

The company derives about 60 per cent of its business from the US.