Workers protest job cuts

Hong Kong - Hundreds of Hong Kong workers marked Labour Day on Friday with protests against job cuts and reduced working hours in this Asian financial capital that has been battered by the global financial crisis.

Slammed by falling export demand and property prices, Hong Kong's economy is likely to shrink between 2-3% in 2009, Financial Secretary John Tsang has said.

The latest government statistics show unemployment at 5.2% during the first quarter.

Two protests organised by pro-government and opposition labor unions on Friday each drew at least several hundred people. Chanting "protect employment" and "workers united," demonstrators marched peacefully from the downtown financial Central district and Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay shopping district to government headquarters in Central.

Protest organizers urged the Hong Kong goverment to create more jobs, increase unemployment benefits and to set a minimum wage.

Grace Chan, a 41-year-old clerk, said she has been unemployed for four months after the trading company she worked at shut down.

"I'm worried it will take quite a long time before I find another job," Chan said.

Shek Man-kong, a 60-year-old moving labourer, said the logistics company he worked for had scaled back his hours and that he was only working three or four days a week, earning 200 to 300 Hong Kong dollars ($26 to $39) a day.

"Workers have no protection now. We are being exploited by the bosses," Shek said.

Hong Kong secretary for labour and welfare Matthew Cheung said in a statement the territory's legislature last Friday passed 12.6bn Hong Kong dollars ($1.6bn) worth of public works projects that will create 15 450 jobs and that the government will introduce minimum wage legislation during the current legislative session.

"We will review our labour policies from time to time to keep abreast of the pace of Hong Kong's socioeconomic development and to take account of the needs of both employers and employees," Cheung said.

- Sapa-AP