Lawmakers highlight unemployment rate dilemma, calling for improved workers’ rights
Promoting employment of local residents and implementing the second MOP10 billion subsidy plan without delay are among the most urgent issues that Macau government are expected to contend with.
Four lawmakers from the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM) – Ella Lei, Leong Sun Iok, Lam Lon Wai and Lei Chan U – held a joint press conference yesterday summarizing the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) work on the first session of the seventh AL term.
Lei highlighted the need to attend to the increasing numbers of currently unemployed local residents.
Recent data from the government shows that the unemployment rate of local residents for the period May to July in 2022 rose to 5.4%, a record high since 2008.
“We received many requests and enquiries from the public across different industries. Many of these involve labor rights issues such as residents who were fired, suspended from their work, forced to take leave without pay, and subject to reduced wages or wages held in arrears,” said the lawmaker.
Further, she said some residents complained about not receiving responses after submitting their job applications to companies, adding that wages across certain jobs were lower than the market rate despite higher selection requirements.
Moreover, some employers reportedly informed job seekers that they were hired in response to the Labour Affairs Bureau’s [job creation and maintenance] policies rather than to fulfil a genuine need. However, these job seekers were subsequently “dismissed without due cause within a short period after hiring them.”
Lei suggested creating more jobs in suitable industries to hire local residents, highlighting the need to improve the success rate of job-matching sessions and reviewing the Labour Relations Law to improve policies on payments in arrears.
“Although job positions have decreased due to the economic recession, several industries still had positions to fill such as gaming, finance and catering. Therefore, suitable job positions for local employees do exist,” Lei added.
She then called on the government to supervise the employment of local residents by initiating more job-matching sessions to avoid fake job hiring practices and to give priority to hiring local employees.
In addition, many gaming employees were concerned about the public tender for the new gaming licenses. On this matter, Lei hopes the gaming companies will not lay off employees.
Lei said that the association also received many requests from lockdown areas (yellow-health code and red-health code area) during the pandemic. The lawmaker suggested the government improve pandemic prevention measures to help residents solve problems and navigate difficulties caused by the pandemic.
Staff Reporter
