A catering sector union has urged the Hong Kong government to regularly review a scheme to import workers to ease long-standing staff shortages and pause it if needed, saying more than 200 locals had reported being fired and replaced by newcomers.
The Eating Establishment Employees General Union said on Thursday that it had received a surge of complaints over the past six months from sacked restaurant workers.
It said some employees had complained that they were sacked with immediate effect and replaced by workers who came to the city through an import scheme introduced by the government about two years ago.
Hong Kong labour authorities began taking applications from companies in September 2023 for 26 new job types, including waiters, junior chefs, and hospitality and sales staff in catering, to bring in unskilled or low-skilled workers from mainland China to combat manpower shortages.
In a recent union survey of 2,054 local workers, more than 1,500 respondents said their employers had brought in foreign labour. Some 83 per cent also said they knew of local colleagues who had been fired after imported workers were hired.
The original intention of the scheme was to supplement workers, but unfortunately, it has turned out to be a replacement of local workers
The union said it had received reports from more than 200 local workers struggling to find work after their employers hired imported staff and sacked them.
