Professor Terence Chong Tai-leung, the executive director of Chinese University’s Lau Chor Tak Institute of Global Economics and Finance, agreed there should be large-scale recruitment from elsewhere, like Singapore.

About a third of Singapore’s workforce are migrant workers – including 270,000 domestic workers. A further 415,000 overseas employees work in the construction and manufacturing sectors.

“If we want to see real impacts, we need to import a lot of workers, not just some Band-Aid solutions,” Chong said.

“But the workers need a place to live here. If we ask them to find accommodation on their own, they might end up moving to subdivided flats or sleeping in the streets to save money.”

Chong warned there was a potential for social problems if housing need for migrant staff was not dealt with properly.

Necessary to import workers if Hong Kong labour crunch persists: John Lee

Debate about the use of outside labour was reignited after Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said recently there was a need to bring in workers and promised to prioritise the construction and transport sectors.

Lee said it was hoped that plans would be formulated by the middle of the year.

There are 53 purpose-built dormitory blocks built by the Singapore government for migrant workers with more than 250,000 bed spaces.

Communal services such as games courts, laundries and minimarts are also provided.

There are also dormitories created by individual factories and on-site temporary living quarters for foreign construction workers.

Godfrey Leung King-kwok, the executive director of the Hong Kong Construction Association, said the city should follow suit and repurpose the quarantine premises.

“Employers can pay rent to the government and arrange transport to ferry their staff to and from their workplaces every day,” Leung said.

Record drop in Hong Kong labour force as 94,000 workers call it quits in 2022

Leung’s association in February estimated Hong Kong was short of about 16,000 construction staff and the Construction Industry Council predicted a shortfall of up to 40,000 site workers by 2027.

Beijing stepped up to help build eight hostel-style isolation centres across the city last year with a combined capacity of about 50,000 places.

Chong said the government could also identify other suitable sites on outlying islands or in rural areas to build simple dormitory accommodation for migrant workers.

“It is not a case of using taxpayers’ money to subsidise employers to use cheap workers. The whole economy will benefit if we have enough workers to sustain growth,” he said.

But Lawmaker Peter Shiu Ka-fai, of the pro-business Liberal Party, said he favoured the Macau method of bringing in workers from southern Guangdong who could return home at the end of the working day.

“There is no need to use government resources and imported mainland workers should have no problem finding more affordable accommodation in Shenzhen,” Shiu said.

Raymond Chui Man-wai, the president of the Institute of Dining Art, said the city catering industry would need to import more than 10,000 workers, but they would not need to live in Hong Kong.

“They can work in the city but live on the mainland as they have families and friends there,” he said.

Chui, also the chairman of Kam Kee Holdings, which operates 44 restaurants in the city, said the industry was desperate for labour and many outlets had been forced to cut opening hours, adjust menus or even temporarily close because of the lack of workers.

Macau government figures showed there were 152,577 non-resident workers in the city in February, about 70 per cent of them from mainland China.

Employers in Macau are required to arrange “free lodgings” or pay a monthly housing allowance of at least HK$485 (US$62) to workers from elsewhere.

Most workers, however, are believed to have opted to live across the border in Guangdong’s Zhuhai to save money.

Hong Kong’s catering, retail sectors need 100,000 workers, industry chiefs say

Dr Thomas Yuen Wai-kee, an assistant professor at Shue Yan University’s department of economics and finance, said he doubted if the Macau strategy could work in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong is much bigger than Macau. One has to consider the stress put on the local transport system and border immigration clearance if thousands of imported workers were to cross the border to come to work every day,” he explained.

“The long commute may also make coming to Hong Kong to work not attractive to the mainland workers.”

Jenny Tam, the vice chairwoman of the Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labour Unions, also opposed the idea.

She insisted it would be the equivalent of opening up the city job market to mainland labour with no limits.

2 firms recruited to help Hong Kong youth working in Greater Bay Area: labour chief

There is a Supplementary Labour Scheme where employers can apply to bring in blue-collar workers to Hong Kong.

The process normally takes about five months, the government said.

Labour Department figures show just 480 people were approved for jobs in the construction sector in 2022 out of more than 5,800 workers given permission to work in the city under the scheme.

There is a one-week processing time for bringing in migrant construction workers to Singapore.