Lei Wai Nong claims no discrimination on access to jobs, lawmakers disagree

The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lei Wai Nong, said yesterday at a plenary session at the Legislative Assembly (AL) that there are no cases in Macau of discrimination regarding access to jobs.

The statement came in response to an inquiry from lawmaker Lei Chan U calling on the government to take measures to stop discrimination in the access to jobs in Macau, namely by those of older age.

Lei said that based on the statistics collected by the Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) there is no such problem as there were no cases reported to the bureau. This reply did not please the lawmakers, with several disagreeing with the statement.

José Pereira Coutinho not only disagreed with the statement, but stated that the problem does exist and takes place “especially in the six gaming concessionaires.” The lawmaker also added that the DSAL has no capacity or has not been exercising its capacity to help residents in lodging complaints about the issue, and this explained the lack of complaints to such a department.

“The Basic Law prohibits discrimination, but the reality is different. In job interviews, discrimination happens often and everyone knows it,” Pereira Coutinho added, remarking that Macau needs a body similar to Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) to effectively address the problem and process complaints.

Also displeased with Lei Wai Nong’s answer was Ella Lei, another lawmaker who represents workers.

Ella Lei said that there are many cases of age discrimination and no sanctions for such cases. Previously the Secretary has said that in the cases of employers found to be in breach of this rule, a penalty that would be translated into a fine ranging between MOP20,000 and 50,000 would be applied to each case.

Ella Lei said the number of such cases was high and most resulted in a simple dismissal without just cause. In such cases, employers simply needed to pay a small amount of compensation, adding that was very easy for the employers to omit the fact that the dismissal took place due to the age of the employee.

“Of course, the employer does not say it is because of the age, but they just give them a job that is not suitable for the workers and then fire them because they cannot perform. The discrimination is very subliminal,” Ella Lei said.

If it is easier to fire a worker based on age, she also noted, is even easier not to hire them for the same reason as they just need to choose another candidate and there is no justification or requirement to pay compensation, she remarked. She noted that it is during the recruitment stage that most such cases of discrimination occur.

For the lawmaker, the cases of age-based discrimination can only be resolved or minimized if the government implements a series of measures directed at the problem.

Nick Lei added that data collected among people who had lost their jobs showed most of them had been subjected to different procedures but nonetheless resulted in a dismissal based on age.

He also said that according to official statistics at the end of the first quarter of this year, a total of 11,000 workers were over 65 years old, which led him to think that this might soon become a severe problem.

“People do not have the means to retire. Many of them cannot survive even if they stop working. Others are actually suitable for work. Why can’t they?” he asked, noting as other lawmakers did that the government plays the most important role in resolving this matter.

Agreeing with Pereira Coutinho on the need for a supervising entity to handle cases of discrimination was Ron Lam, who refuted the suggestion that there were no such cases. Rather, there was no entity responsible for handling those cases.

He also said that the government could promote incentives via social enterprises or even the creation of special benefits for companies to hire older workers.

Lam reminded that “Macau does not have a legal age for retirement and those who are working at old age need to have a guiding line.”

This is not the first time that the Secretary for Economy and Finance came under fire from lawmakers for providing responses that they considered “too simplistic” and “divorced from reality,” with lawmakers often accusing him of not ascribing enough importance to their role of supervision on the work of the government.