All practical purposes

Peter Ng's future seemed dismal when he dropped out of school after Form Three - all he could get were odd jobs. Getting into a Towngas trainee programme at 18, however, turned his life around.

As he followed technicians on their rounds, Ng discovered a love for tinkering and enrolled in night courses in welding and gas installation run by the Vocation Training Council. 'For over a year, I attended classes after work four days a week. It was very tiring,' Ng recalls.

Those efforts paid off when he became a licensed gas technician three years ago. Now the 27-year-old earns HK$17,000 a month as a subcontractor for the gas company.

Specialist vocational courses such as those Ng took are coming into their own when youth joblessness is worsening and employers are on the lookout for skilled workers.

Notwithstanding a dip in unemployment to 5.3 per cent this quarter, the jobless rate among people aged between 15 and 19 reached 28.7 per cent in July - a 4.4 per cent rise from June and well above the average.

'The real situation is much worse,' says Shiu Ka-chun, a social work lecturer at Baptist University. 'Besides the many unemployed youths, there is a much larger group doing odd jobs. They might sell pirated DVDs, lie idle for a period and then find a half-day job in a restaurant. They may earn HK$1,000 this month and nothing the next. Drifting in and out of odd jobs, they become lost and lose the motivation to work.'