Hong Kong SAR
Brief Country Report of Hong Kong on Work & Employment for People with Disabilities
October, 2002
Deborah Wan, CEO, New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
Hong Kong, a special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China since 1997, has a population of 6,724,900 (Census 2001) and has 5% of the population who have disabilities ie. 340,000. The policy objective for employment and vocational rehabilitation is stipulated as follow:
"To meet the goals of full participation and equalization of opportunities in the context of employment and vocational rehabilitation, the objective is to ensure that people with a disability have an equal chance to participate in productive and gainful employment in the open market." (Rehabilitation Program Plan 98/99-02/03)
Vocational rehabilitation services cater for people with physical disability (including visually & hearing impaired), people with intellectual disability (mental retardation), people with psychiatric disability and people with chronic illness. So a total of six categories of people with disability are served with work & employment programmes. The majority of service users are people with mental handicap and people with psychiatric disability.
The vocational rehabilitation services in Hong Kong includes vocational training, measures taken to facilitate open employment for people with a disability both in public and private sectors, supported employment and sheltered workshops provided for those who cannot cope with the demands of competitive job market.
Vocational training is provided through five Skills Centres of Vocational Training Council in which assessment and 1,000 full-time training places are offered for people with disabilities. Employees Retraining Scheme offered retraining courses to people with disabilities and 4,173 retrainees attended in 2001. For special employment services, the Selective Placement Division of the Labour Department provides placement for people with disabilities in open employment and promotes job opportunities in labour market. A Trial Placement Scheme with mentor scheme has been launched to attract employers to provide trials for applicants with a disability.
53 sheltered workshops are funded by Social Welfare Department with US$35 million in 01/02 to provide work training for 7,527 people with disabilities and the job orders vary from simple assembly, letter shopping, sewing products, printing, making of souvenirs etc. to outdoor work such as car cleansing, indoor/outdoor cleansing work etc. A noticeable achievement is the changing nature of sheltered work. Due to the changing economy, assembly work has been decreased in the past decade, so new sources of work has been explored and developed, such as self-produced products which are one useful means to engage people with disabilities in daily work with end products to be seen. Outdoor cleansing work has become one of the popular service for sheltered workshops. With more market-driven emphasis in the services of sheltered workshops, there is a slight increase of the monthly income of sheltered workers to about US$110 in spite of the depressed economy. 1,030 sheltered workers performed outdoor sub-contract work and earned US$1.4 million in 01/02 and 1.3% of sheltered workers could be admitted to Supported Employment Service as upward mobility in 2001/02.
Supported employment service is funded by the Social Welfare Department with US$4.8 million in 2001/02 to provide a kind of employment service for 1,870 people with disabilities, which enable them to work in an integrated open setting with necessary counseling and support services and to have access to all the usual benefits of having a job at market rates. Support services include liaison with employers, job match and placement,on-the-job training, supervision, guidance and counseling to the service users. The ultimate goal is to prepare people with disabilities to work in an open and competitive setting independently. The service is operated in the formats of individual placement, mobile crew, simulated business, enclave etc. Numerous simulated businesses have been set up by NGOs to provide real work situation for the training of people with disabilities, such as convenience stores, tuck shop, household ware shop, vegetable stalls, fruit stall, restaurants etc. The average monthly income of supported employmenttrainees is about US$372 in 2001/02.
To further encourage more people with disabilities to obtain open employment in the community and became more self-reliance, the Social Welfare Department has implemented On-the-Job Training Program for People with Disabilities from 2001 for 3 years with a fund of US$2.9 million to benefit 1,080 people with disabilities. NGOs are invited to operate the service to provide job-related training, counseling, job matching to the people with disabilities who are given an allowance for 3 months job attachment program, and encourage employers to offer or create a job trial with an allowance to the employer at a rate of 50% of the wage given to the participantsor US$385 whichever is the lower, for a maximum period of 3 months. The NGO provides no less than 6 months post-placement service to each participant.
The Marketing Consultancy Office of Social Welfare Department is set up permanently in the year 2001 in which a team of staff are delegated with responsibilities to introduce the marketing approach and business development strategies to the vocational rehabilitation service units for promoting the work abilities of people with disabilities and enhancing their employment opportunities. They form a strong alliance about 100 service units to offer varied competitive services of and products made by people with disabilities to big and small business organizations and governmental departments so as to source job contracts and job opportunities for sheltered workshop/supported employment service. The Marketing Consultancy Office is also tasked with promotion & publicity on abilities & capacities of people with disabilities.
In this financial year, the government is committed to provide a capital of US$6.4 millions as seed money to promote the formation of small enterprises by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to create job opportunities for people with disabilities. Under this service mode, the NGOs will enter into employer ? employee relationship with the disabled. Initially 10 business projects have been selected to operate in 02/03 and undertake business initiatives such as competing for cleansing service contracts in the open market, providing meal boxes for schools, refreshment kiosks and retail shop as well as engaging in production of crafts etc. All these business ventures should operate on a self-financing basis.
In the past two years, the government and the NGOs have worked together in partnership in finding suitable work & employment for people with disabilities and the results, so far, are encouraging and the ultimate aim is to facilitate people with disabilities enter employment in open & competitive market of Hong Kong.
The network between public and private organizations for identification and creation of more job opportunities for people with disabilities has started to be strengthened. Besides introducing marketing development strategiesand business-oriented training programs to the service providers, a Campaign on nominating "Caring Company" has started to encourage the private sector to cultivate corporate citizenship and strategic partnership with social service sector. The business firms have the commitment to serve the community in 2 of the 6 items which include employing vulnerable, volunteering, partnering,mentoring, donating, family friendly. Also the Social Welfare Department in cooperation with the NGOs is working for the establishment of a quality trademark for the products and services provided/produced by the people with disabilities, called "Support the Employment of People with Disabilities SEPD". The trademark will be marketed locally so that the general public is aware of the abilities of the people with disabilities.