Coronavirus: thousands of domestic helpers set to return to Hong Kong as talks with Philippines, Indonesia progress over Covid-19 jabs
- But employment agency trade group warns of potential delays if city does not prepare enough quarantine hotels to serve influx
- Labour Department says there is ‘hope arrangements can be announced after a consensus is reached next week’
But an employment agency trade group warned of potential delays if the city did not prepare enough quarantine hotels to serve the influx, estimating around 2,000 workers were ready to fly into the city.
In a reply to the Post on Saturday, the Labour Department said officials were making good progress in talks with the Philippine and Indonesian consulates in the city on recognising vaccination records.
“There is hope that the arrangements can be announced after a consensus is reached next week,” the department said.
“The government plans to arrange for these helpers to stay in quarantine in one to two specific hotels and it is discussing the details. After finalising the arrangements, the government will announce the details separately.”
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Earlier this month, officials announced that helpers from both countries, which the government classified as being in the highest-risk category for Covid-19, would be able to return if they had been vaccinated in Hong Kong. But all must quarantine for 21 days upon entry in the specified hotels.
Hong Kong officials and the consulates have been working together to set up a specific system to cover those inoculated in the two Southeast Asian countries, which supply most of the city’s domestic workers.
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The city currently only recognises vaccination records issued by a health care institution or a relevant authority of the governments in Hong Kong or mainland China, or a country where its national regulatory authority is designated as stringent by the World Health Organization.
Hong Kong Union of Employment Agencies chairman Thomas Chan Tung-fung this month said the Philippine government was looking into using an internationally recognised vaccination card for helpers to come to the city.
Chan estimated on Saturday that 6,000 to 7,000 helpers who had already secured visas were stuck in both countries, while about 2,000 could fly to Hong Kong with full vaccination records.
He expressed concerns over the lack of designated hotel rooms because each worker had to be quarantined for three weeks.
Chan said most employers were willing to pay between HK$300 (US$38) and HK$500 a night for helpers’ rooms, but only a small fraction of the city’s 36 designated quarantine hotels for arrivals could offer such packages.
“To match employers’ expectations, the government can only find hotels which charge medium to low prices. But most of these businesses tend to have a smaller number of rooms,” he said. “When the two hotels provided for helpers can only offer 400 rooms, then it will be a big problem. It will cause another kind of congestion.”
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He estimated at least 800 to 1,000 rooms would be needed if the city allowed 3,000 to 4,000 workers to enter within three months.
Flights from the Philippines and Indonesia had been banned from April and June, respectively, hitting Hong Kong’s supply of foreign domestic workers and pushing up their monthly wages from about HK$5,000 to between HK$6,000 and HK$8,000.
The government overhauled the city’s entry rules this month, merging five risk-based categories for countries into three, and lifting travel bans on the Philippines and Indonesia – provided that arriving residents were vaccinated against the coronavirus. Certification rules were also set, barring those who received their jabs in the two countries from entry.
Tourism sector lawmaker Yiu Si-wing said it would be impossible to just rely on the 36 quarantine hotels, adding packages for workers would have to be affordable.
He urged the government to speak with some lower-end hotels about securing the whole property for quarantine purposes, saying he believed businesses would be interested in offering such services.
“The main problem is some hotels still receive guests and bookings … You can’t just casually ask customers to leave,” Yiu said, adding that some properties had stopped selling rooms because of the pandemic, so officials could approach them first.
Eman Villanueva, spokesman for the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, welcomed the development on vaccination records, saying many of the helpers had been waiting for the opportunity to work in Hong Kong for months.
While Villanueva was unsure about the capacity of the planned quarantine hotels, he said the government should prepare for thousands of workers arriving.
“I hope the airlines will arrange more frequent trips because there will be lots of them coming in,” he said.
The main problem is some hotels still receive guests and bookings … you can’t just casually ask the customers to leave
He also called on both the Philippine and Indonesian governments to continue to assist helpers who were still waiting in their countries, given they were jobless.
According to the Food and Health Bureau, the average booking rate for the 36 hotels in September was about 83 per cent as of Thursday.
Travellers who need to book three weeks of hotel quarantine will probably have to wait until mid-September for availability, a Post analysis has found, after stricter isolation rules announced by the government on Monday triggered a scramble for rooms.
