Download Welfare Reform in Alberta: Reflections on Trends in Hong Kong

WELFARE REFORM IN ALBERTA:
REFLECTIONS ON TRENDS IN HONG KONG
- Challenges and Opportunities
(by T S CHOW)
The Problem
A couple of years ago, the US Federal Government came
face-to-face with threat of bankruptcy because of the disproportionate growth
in welfare payments. Hong Kong is inadvertantly going down the same path.
2.
What is worrying is not the improvements in welfare payments
for the elderly or for people who cannot help themselves, but with the
seven-fold increase in the past five years in the number of able-bodied
unemployed cases. “Almost one in five, or twenty per cent of the total
number of unemployed people in Hong Kong, are living on Comprehensive
Social Security Assistance (CSSA) payments”. If the underlying problems
are not addressed quickly, the upward trend will continue unabated. CSSA
will suck in more and more unemployed people. Before long, it will begin to
lure people away from low paid jobs to live on high paid welfare.
3.
In the Yosemite National Park in California, there are small
signboards reminding well intentioned tourists: “Don’t feed the squirrels.
Don’t turn them into beggars.” Misdirected welfare payments destroy the
traditional values of hard work and self reliance, the cornerstone of Hong
Kong’s success. It gives rise to a dependency syndrome and discourages
people from assuming the full responsibilities of adulthood.
Market Forces
4.
It is not difficult to find a job in today’s job market. But it is
difficult to find a good one if you do not have the proper education or craft
skills. To eke out a living is tough for everyone, but more so for people at the
lower end of the employment market. Many people are still working 11 to 12
hours a day, earning only $4,500 to $5,000 a month.
5.
To live on welfare is a different story. Welfare recipients can
spend 11 or 12 hours a day on their hobbies, or in parks and beaches or simply
doing nothing. Most restaurant workers have only three rest days in a month.
Welfare recipients have thirty rest days in a month. In an economic down
turn, workers have to worry about their jobs and whether they will get paid at
the end of the month. Welfare recipients enjoy a much better sense of
financial security. Workers have to be productive in their output to get a
bonus. Welfare recipients can double or triple their welfare payment by being
productive “in a different direction”.
- 2 -
6.
The invisible hands of market forces thus determine the
behaviour of unemployed people. As it is more cost effective to live on
welfare than to earn one’s own living, more and more unemployed people will
be attracted to the welfare option. Once they get there, they will not leave.
The Way Forward
7.
The growing consensus among informed circles is to differentiate
between people who can help themselves from people who can not. They
have to be treated differently.
8.
What has not been agreed upon is whether incentives to work
will be better served by the removal or the preservation of welfare payments
for the unemployed; whether deprivation in meeting a person or a family’s
basic needs is a primary force driving people to work and therefore a healthy
element in our social fabric.
9.
Visible and invisible barriers exist which prevent genuine job
seekers from getting a job. Thus the provision of suitable and adequate
pre-school and after school child care service is more important for single
parents, and the provision of retraining on job search skills and job skills are
more important than the provision of welfare payments for the unemployed.
10.
Drug addicts and people who are psychologically or socially
maladjusted present real problems in job search. Few employers are willing
to hire them. They are therefore not yet employable until they have been
rehabilitated.
11.
When barriers to job entry are removed, what is left to be
considered is the incentive to work. For people who show no interest in
working without a reason, should we leave them on their own until they have
made up their mind, or should we rush to their rescue? Should we pay for
people who choose to remain idle, or should we only pay for them to equip
themselves with more skills by taking active steps in the job search process?
Opportunities
12.
Human beings are society’s most valuable resource. When
more and more productive people live on welfare, we are losing at both ends paying more in welfare but getting fewer people to work - aggravating the
perennial problem of labour shortage.
13.
If we can reverse the trend, we would be stopping the
haemorrhage, saving over a billion dollars every year in welfare payments and
bringing back ten thousand productive workers to the workplace. But this is
no easy task. We have to make up our own minds. We have to act in
concert, act quickly and act decisively.
Table 3J
表 3J
Employed persons by Monthly employment earnings
按每月就業收入劃分的就業人數
Monthly employment
earnings (HK$)
每月就業收入(港元)
< 3,000
1996
Q2
第二季
No.
%
人數
百分比
(’000)
1997(1)
Q1
第一季
No.
%
人數
百分比
(’000)
1997
Q2
第二季
No.
%
人數
百分比
(’000)
73.6
2.5
61.8
2.0
59.6
1.9
3,000 - 3,999
169.4
5.6
155.2
5.0
154.2
5.0
4,000 - 4,999
111.6
3.7
95.0
3.1
91.9
3.0
5,000 - 5,999
168.1
5.6
146.7
4.7
135.1
4.3
6,000 - 6,999
241.0
8.0
210.8
6.8
204.0
6.6
7,000 - 7,999
262.8
8.8
239.8
7.8
246.2
7.9
8,000 - 8,999
364.2
12.1
332.7
10.8
333.5
10.7
9,000 - 9,999
210.6
7.0
237.9
7.7
256.9
8.3
10,000 - 14,999
671.9
22.4
751.6
24.3
771.6
24.8
15,000 - 19,999
287.3
9.6
332.8
10.8
327.9
10.5
20,000 - 29,999
238.7
8.0
284.7
9.2
275.8
8.9
> 30,000
200.5
6.7
241.0
7.8
256.2
8.2
2,999.6
100.0
3,090.2
100.0
3,112.8
100.0
Total
總計
Median (HK$)
中位數(港元)
9,000
10,000
Note : (1) Earnings exclude Chinese New Year bonus/double pay.
註釋: (1)
/ 雙糧。
10,000
Industry
Textile an Garment
6.1%
Manufacturing
8.6%
Import and Export
13.3%
Wholesale and Retail
14.6%
Hotels and Catering
7.5%
Transport, Storage and Communication
8.0%
Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and
Business Service
10.5%
Community, Social and Personal Service
26.1%
Others
5.3%
Job Mode
Full Time
60.4%
Part Time
35.4%
Temporary
4.2%
Salary (Full Time Monthly)
Below 5,000
13.8%
5,000 - 5,999
23.3%
6,000 - 6,999
24.8%
7,000 - 7,999
13.9%
8,000 - 8,999
12.6%
9,000 - 9,999
5.3%
Above 10,000
6.3%
Average Salary
Full Time (Monthly)
$6,624.60
Part Time (Monthly)
$2,991.70
Daily
$234.00
Hourly
$61.10