Maids Could Help Ease Care Home Staff Shortages

The government is looking at setting up a training programme to enable foreign domestic helpers to work in subsidised elderly care homes, to ease a chronic manpower shortage in the sector.

Helpers who take up these jobs would likely be paid significantly more than those who work for individual families, reports said.

The chairman of the Elderly Commission, executive councillor Lam Ching-choi, said the pilot scheme could be put in place as soon as this year.

Lam said there is currently a shortage of thousands of frontline workers in the sector.

He conceded, however, that the planned move could create competition between the elderly care home market and the local domestic helper market.

But he told RTHK's Janice Wong that he believes the government would do its best to minimise the effect on families who rely on helpers.

"Actually, they have quite a different skill set and if we can differentiate these two markets well, I don't think it will have a huge impact on the local domestic helper market."