Govt To Roll Out New Measures To Help Underemployed

The government has proposed a series of measures to help people who can't find enough work during the coronavirus pandemic.

Labour secretary Law Chi-kwong said on Thursday that the government is seeking to relax the criteria for a basic subsidy for low-income families, to allow around 24,000 more underemployed households to benefit from the scheme for a year.

He said eligible non-single parent families could apply for a monthly subsidy under the Working Family Allowance Scheme if they work at least 72 hours a month, instead of the original 144 hours.

“These days a lot of people cannot work full-time and have to take no-paid leave. In these circumstances, a lot of families or individuals, because of this situation, apart from reducing income, may lose the eligibility to apply for the Working Family Allowance,” Law said.

The minister said the government will also relax the requirements for struggling households to receive food supplies.

A four-person family with assets totalling less than HK$548,000 will be eligible for the Short-term Food Assistance Service, up from the current limit of HK$264,000; while the assets cap for a single person to be eligible will be raised from HK$99,000 to HK$266,000.

Both relief measures are expected to be rolled out on June 1 and will be effective for one year, after the Legislative Council's finance committee approves the plans.

However, Law said the government will scrap a transport subsidy for low-income working individuals, so that more resources could be used to help underemployed families eligible for the adjusted Working Family Allowance Scheme.

Law said he believed only a small number of transport subsidy recipients will be affected by the change, because most of them will be able to switch to the Working Family Allowance Scheme.

Law said, for example, an eligible four-person family could get a HK$3,800 subsidy under the Working Family Allowance Scheme if between them they worked more than 72 hours a month. He said this figure would be higher than what they could get if all four applied for the transport subsidy – which would add up to a total of HK$2,400 per month.

Meanwhile, the secretary again rejected calls for a fund to support the unemployed.

“In this whole world, no country, no government has ever provided non-means tested, or non-contributive unemployment benefits. And it’s very interesting that people in Hong Kong have been advocating for such a scheme that no one else in this world would do,” he said.

Law said it’s neither meaningful nor practical to set up a temporary unemployment fund, arguing that it would be difficult for the government to justify helping those who became jobless before a certain cut-off date, but not those after it – as the two groups of people would both deserve help.

He added that it would also be equally difficult to stop providing temporary unemployment subsidies once the city’s unemployment rate dropped to a certain level.

“It’ll be very difficult, in policy terms, that we should support the ones who are unemployed at four percent unemployment rate, but not the ones who are unemployed at an unemployment rate of 3.99. Because they’re actually in the same situation.”