Hong Kong Immigration Department rejects 319 visa applications from ‘job-hopping’ domestic helpers
- Group representing migrant workers reacts angrily to suggestions domestic helpers are switching jobs so they can rack up repeat severance payments
- Immigration Department figures reveal a 93 per cent increase over two years in visa rejections issued to helpers suspected of ‘job hopping’
Hong Kong immigration officials rejected work applications from more than 300 “job-hopping” foreign domestic helpers last year, almost double the 2018 figure, the city’s security minister has revealed.
But the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body reacted angrily to suggestions that helpers were switching jobs specifically to secure severance payments, calling the reported practice a myth and one that fostered discrimination in the 400,000-strong workforce.
The Immigration Department in 2020 denied visa applications from 319 domestic workers believed to have engaged in job hopping, Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu told a Legislative Council meeting on Wednesday. The figure marked a rise from 267 in 2019 and 165 the previous year.
Some employers have for many years accused domestic workers of frequently changing who they worked for without valid reason as part of a strategy to collect a series of severance payments.
The coronavirus crisis and associated shortage of helpers had encouraged the practice, they said, by driving up the wages that better-off employers were willing to offer those already with work.
Lee revealed the number of visa denials in response to questions from pro-Beijing lawmaker Priscilla Leung Mei-fun, who noted employers faced hefty expenses when taking on new helpers, including large hotel bills for recruits’ 21-day compulsory Covid-19 quarantine on arrival to the city.
“In the event that [the helpers] prematurely terminate their employment contracts or deliberately perform badly to force employers to fire them so as to change employers (commonly known as “job-hopping”), the employers concerned will suffer great financial losses,” she wrote in her question.