Lawmakers call for employment protection, better career paths

A group of lawmakers has separately called on the government to enforce more measures to protect the employment of local residents.
Lawmakers Ho Ion Sang, Leong Sun Iok, and Lam Lon Wai put forward inquires before the agenda of Thursday’s Legislative Assembly session. Each one called for protections for the employment of recent graduates, gaming workers, and workers in general.
Lam recalled a recent study organized by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions which notes that the unemployment among residents is higher and is growing faster than the general unemployment rate.
“In other words, there are 12,000 people unemployed [between February and April this year], an increase of 400 people,” Lam said, citing the figures from the study.
He added: “These figures show a pessimistic employment situation, that [requires] that the government enforce measures to support the job placement of local workers.”
Lam called for urgent measures, noting that, beside the unemployment figures, there are also growing concerns about the underemployment rate, workers in layoff situations, and those experiencing wages reductions.
The lawmaker also called on the government to enforce special rules regarding contracts for public works and the like to “safeguard the priority of hiring residents; to avoid the [program] of replacing residents with non-residents; and [to] prevent the abnormal competition between residents and non-residents that offer cheaper manpower.”
On the same topic, Leong noted more specifically that gaming sector workers are among those most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The lawmaker wants the government, taking into account the recent tender of a new gaming concessions law, to enforce added guarantees for the workers of this industry.
“For the well-being of workers, I hope that the government will take advantage of this opportunity, of the new public tender for the gaming licenses. [I hope that they will] promote the improvement of the working environment and the career development in the gaming sector, optimizing the work environment and guarantees, encourage concessionaires to implement measures favorable to the family, [and] to increase the capacity to resist [social] risks,” Leong said.
He added that the government should think about the creation of a Gaming Workers’ Rights Protection Fund.
Leong also proposed that more careers within the gaming sector should be restricted to local workers only as is done for the post of croupier — to “leave the good jobs to Macau people.”
The lawmaker noted that, as the major pillar of the local economy, measures enforced for this sector may also result in good outcomes for other industries linked with it.
Lawmaker Ho expressed concerns primarily about the difficulties of recent graduates trying to land a job under the current economic circumstances.
Ho wants the government to create and disclose information through secondary schools to help the local students choose career paths as early as possible, to help minimize the number deciding on careers that have few prospects in Macau.
The lawmaker thinks that the government should create guidebooks for schools to help students decide on the right career paths, pointing the new generation toward developing talents identified to be in demand by the government.