Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ18: Unemployed CSSA youths
Following is a question by the Hon Lau Kong-wah and a written reply by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council
today (November 16):
Question :
With regard to the unemployed persons aged between 14 and 30 who are receiving
Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) payments, will the Government
inform this Council:
(a) of the number of such recipients at the end of each of the past three years,
broken down by age groups each covering five years; and among these recipients,
the respective percentages of those who had been receiving CSSA payments for
more than one year, as well as whether it has assessed if such percentages are
on the high side;
(b) of the percentage of such recipients in the unemployed population, and how
it compares to the relevant figures in developed countries; and
(c) whether it has looked into the causes of unemployment of these persons, and
of the measures in place to assist and encourage them to seek employment?
Reply :
Madam President,
It is the Administration's policy to provide 9 years of free and compulsory
education. Generally speaking, children under 15 should be receiving education
in schools and therefore should not be classified as unemployed in the analysis
of unemployed CSSA recipients even though their families are recipients of CSSA
assistance under unemployed category. My answers to the questions are as
follows:
(a) A breakdown in accordance with the age groups of CSSA recipients in the
unemployed category over the past three years and the respective percentage of
those who had been receiving CSSA payments for more than one year are shown in
Table 1.
We note that in percentage terms, the proportion of CSSA recipients aged 21-25
in the unemployed category who have been on the CSSA for more than 1 year has
increased from 48% to 72% from the year 2002 to 2004. The corresponding ratio
for the group of recipients aged 26-30 has also increased from 38% to 58%.
(b) In 2004, the percentage of unemployed CSSA recipients aged 15-30 amounted to
2.5% of the total unemployed population. There are no directly comparable
figures available for other developed countries. However, we can compare our
youth unemployment figures with those of other developed countries. According to
the definition adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), 'youth'
refers to those aged 15-24 and this is the definition adopted by most countries.
The unemployment rates of youth in Hong Kong and other developed countries are
set out in Table 2.
(c) We have adopted an active welfare-to-work policy under the CSSA Scheme to
help those individuals (including those aged 15-30) who can work to enhance
their capacity for self-reliance. Major measures include the following :
(i) Unemployed CSSA recipients in general
* In June 2003, Social Welfare Department (SWD) has intensified the Support for
Self-reliance Scheme which provide personalized measures to help able-bodied
unemployed CSSA recipients to regain self-reliance. Currently, long term
unemployed participants would need to perform Community Work (CW) three days a
week. SWD has commissioned Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to launch
Intensive Employment Assistant Projects (IEAPs) for employable CSSA recipients
and near CSSA recipients to assist them to remove work barriers, enhance their
employability and get back to work through a range of activities such as job
matching, job skill training, employment counselling and post-employment
support. Up to August 2005, 70 IEAP projects have been launched and over 13,450
CSSA recipients have participated in the IEAPs. During these first two years,
most of the projects have proved able to meet the performance target that 40% of
participants would secure employment. Out of the 13,450 CSSA participants, 2,700
(20%) were aged 15-30 and 1,400 (52%) of these could secure full-time employment
so that their unemployment status was changed either to the 'CSSA low-earnings'
category or they are able to leave the CSSA net altogether. In October 2005,
another 35 IEAP projects were launched, making a total of 105 projects.
* Since 2003, we have also raised the maximum level of monthly Disregarded
Earnings under the CSSA Scheme to $2,500 to provide recipients with more
incentives to find and maintain employment.
(ii) Unemployed CSSA youths
* SWD has implemented two special enhanced community work programmes tailor-made
for unemployed CSSA youths. In September 2005, a pilot programme was launched
for CSSA recipients aged 15-34 to work on a large scale mosaic project. Another
pilot programme will be launched in January 2006 for CSSA recipients aged 15-25
to develop dog training skills. A total of 100 youths would participate in these
two programmes.
* The Commission on Poverty (CoP) has noted the trend of youths receiving CSSA,
in particular those who have been on CSSA for a long period and have failed to
be motivated by the existing employment programmes. The CoP is consequently
working with relevant departments to launch a pilot project "My STEP" to
strengthen motivation and job matching elements of programmes for these
hard-core cases among CSSA youths. As a first step, 50 CSSA youths would be
selected from Tin Shui Wai to participate in this project.
(iii) Youth in general
* In September 1999, the Labour Department (LD) launched the Youth
Pre-employment Training Programme (YPTP) to provide a wide range of
employment-related training to school leavers aged 15 to 19 (including CSSA
recipients) in order to enhance their employability. Over the past six years,
more than 66,000 young persons have been trained under the programme and about
70 percent of them managed to secure employment.
* In July 2002, the LD launched the Youth Work Experience and Training Scheme (YWETS)
to provide work experience and on-the-job training for young people aged 15 to
24 (including CSSA recipients) with educational attainment below degree level.
As at the end of October 2005, more than 25,000 trainees were placed in training
vacancies. In addition, some 13,000 trainees found jobs in the open market with
the assistance of their case managers.
The CoP will undertake a study with SWD on the factors underlying hardcore CSSA
youth cases, including the reasons for their unemployment after participating in
the existing employment programmes, in order to make policy recommendations as
to how to better tackle the problem.
Ends/Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Issued at HKT 14:35
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Attachment:
Table 1 & 2 to LegCo Q18