Coronavirus Hong Kong: more than 6,000 workers at isolation facilities ‘to become jobless’ as outbreak eases
- Labour sector lawmaker Dennis Leung says health authorities plan to wind down operations at six community isolation facilities as early as next Thursday
- Legislators urge government to protect jobs of facility staff, avoid ‘largest one-day redundancy in city’s history’
The legislators on Thursday also called on the government to avoid the “largest one-day redundancy” in the city’s history by protecting the jobs of the workers by using the facilities to house cross-border truck drivers and arriving domestic helpers.
“It would be the largest number of employees being fired on a single day in Hong Kong’s history and would further push up the city’s unemployment rate,” labour sector lawmaker Dennis Leung Tsz-wing said.
Leung said he had learned the Department of Health planned to wind down operations at the six community isolation facilities at Fanling, San Tin, Tam Mei, Hung Shui Kiu, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and Tsing Yi as early as next Thursday. He added that the sites could be relaunched if a sixth coronavirus wave emerged.
The government had hired about 5,400 temporary cleaners and security guards to help at these facilities under contracts with a termination notice period of seven days, Leung said.
The Security Bureau also hired about 1,000 people, including retirees from the disciplined services and employees deployed from other units, to provide logistical and telephone hotline services, he said.