Joblessness has hit another high in Hong Kong and Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po is warning even worse times could lie ahead. The angst should not be ignored as the Covid-19 pandemic remains as threatening as ever. Vaccination holds the key to rescuing the economy, but even after immunisation begins, it will be a year or more before a measure of normality returns. To ride out the continued challenges, the city needs entrepreneurship, creative thinking and government support that provide short-term solutions and a forward-looking strategy to address the deficiencies in the job market. Unemployment has reached 6.6 per cent, the highest level in 16 years, amounting to more than 260,000 people being out of work. That is still some way from the record 8.5 per cent during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2003, but circumstances are markedly different this time. While Sars disappeared, that seems unlikely with Covid-19 even with the likely roll-out of vaccines from the middle of next month. The earlier disease was largely regional while the new coronavirus has a truly global impact that has shut down borders and travel, crushed economies and harmed companies and jobs. The lowest-paid and most vulnerable are the worst affected. Highlighting the growing gap between rich and poor, the wealthiest have generally kept their jobs. Flower markets to proceed, but with crowd control: government U-turn The retail and catering sectors are the hardest hit, but the government’s social-distancing measures, which have temporarily shut down particular economic sectors including gyms, beauty and massage parlours and entertainment venues, have created uncertainty for tens of thousands. Government subsidies aimed at giving a lifeline to firms and their workers have ended and without promise of more help, a cold, hard, reality is now setting in. Firms could lay off more staff, introduce no-pay schemes and make deeper salary cuts. The innovative spirit that has got Hong Kong through the toughest of times in the past is needed as never before. A government scheme to create 30,000 jobs over two years is in the right direction, although obviously not enough; 7,500 are set aside for low-skilled jobs such as gardening, mosquito spraying and cleaning. Such a scheme could be dramatically expanded to put people to work in epidemic-related roles such as ensuring that social-distancing and quarantine rules are being followed. Opportunities abound for the tech-savvy with so many people moving online for shopping, education, business and entertainment. Circumstances have not got as bad as during the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s, where people were metaphorically being paid to dig holes and then fill them back in. But with so much uncertainty and the possibility that lives and business have been irrevocably changed, there is every need to be realistic and prepared.