Strengthening labour protections and workforce competitiveness in Hong Kong

30 September 2025 2 min read

At a glance

The Chief Executive's 2025 Policy Address has provided a roadmap for the government's upcoming goals, including those relating to labour.
The government will place emphasis on prioritising local employment and combatting illegal labour practices.
The Employees Retraining Board will continue to be reformed to address skill gaps and support workforce development.
New protections for digital platform workers and enhanced occupational safety measures will get underway.
A revised minimum wage mechanism will set the statutory minimum wage rate for the first time in May 2026.

The Chief Executive's 2025 Policy Address has provided a roadmap for the government's upcoming goals, including those relating to labour and employment.

The roadmap has highlighted a series of labour policy reforms aimed at safeguarding local employment, enhancing workforce skills, and improving labour protections.

Employment priority of local workers & combatting illegal employment

Whilst the government acknowledges the need to address the declining labour force by importing labour under its Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS), it also recognises the importance of ensuring employment priority of local workers.

As such, new measures under the ESLS place new obligations on employers in relation to the recruitment of certain employees in the hospitality sector (eg waiters and junior cooks), requiring them to increase local recruitment efforts, such as extending the minimum period for local recruitment process and making the ratio for local workers more stringent.

The measures are designed to prevent abuse of ESLS, but also ensure that businesses genuinely unable to recruit locally can access supplementary labour without undermining local job opportunities.

The government will also step up efforts to combat illegal employment. In particular, it commits to establish a dedicated hotline for reporting illegal workers, and strengthen intelligence collection and inter-departmental joint enforcement operations to safeguard the employment opportunities of local workers.

Strengthening the Employee Relations Retraining Board

Continuing the enhancement of its training and career planning services, the Employees Retraining Board will strengthen its industry consultative mechanism, and identify demand for and gaps in core skills in a targeted manner to devise a skills-based training framework. Relevant legislative amendments will be made to the Employees Retraining Ordinance in due course.

Expansion in labour protections

Labour protections are also being expanded.

The government is committed to legislate improvements to the work injury compensation mechanism for digital platform workers and continue stakeholder engagement through the Tripartite Committee for the Digital Platform Industry.

The labour department will continue to step up inspection and enforcement, promotion and publicity, as well as education and training, to build a stronger occupational health and safety culture and reduce accidents.

Re-employment Allowance Pilot Scheme

A mid-term review of the Re-employment Allowance Pilot Scheme will be conducted in 2026 to explore further support for elderly and middle-aged workers.