A migrant workers’ group has expressed disagreement with a recent petition calling on the authorities to freeze foreign domestic workers’ minimum wage amid the sluggish economy.
A salary freeze would not alleviate the economic hardships faced by Hongkongers, the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) said in a statement on Thursday. The group said the current base monthly salary of HK$4,990 was “already very low,” adding that domestic workers were also impacted by inflation.
Instead of urging the authorities to freeze workers’ pay, employers should ask the government to tackle unemployment and high living costs, including rent and transportation, the AMCB said.
“[Migrant domestic workers] should not be the scapegoats for the Hong Kong Government’s negligence in addressing the worsening situation in Hong Kong,” a statement from the AMCB read.
Quadripartite Alliance for Harmonious Employment Practices
The AMCB’s response came two days after the Quadripartite Alliance for Harmonious Employment Practices (QAHEP), a group which claims to represent employers, submitted the pay freeze petition to the Labour Department and a lawmaker.
According to local media, the group said freezing the salary of foreign domestic workers would align with the government’s pay freeze for civil servants, which was announced in February. Financial Secretary Paul Chan estimated at the time that Hong Kong would face a deficit of HK$87.2 billion in 2024-25, marking the third consecutive financial year in the red.
The group also cited an increase in the unemployment rate to 3.5 per cent, while the city’s economic growth was projected to reach 2 to 3 per cent. It was a “contradiction in policy direction” for the annual salary of foreign domestic workers to increase while the government froze the pay of its employees, the QAHEP said.
The QAHEP added that employers had faced “increasingly severe” issues in relation to foreign domestic workers. It cited instances of domestic workers borrowing high-interest private loans, which resulted in the harassment of the employers’ families during debt collection efforts.
Last September, the government announced a 2.5 per cent rise in the minimum wage paid to migrant domestic workers in the city, raising their monthly salary from HK$4,870 to HK$4,990 for contracts signed on or after September 28. There was no change to workers’ food allowance, which currently stands at HK$1,236 per month, or roughly HK$40 per day.
At the time, the AMCB said it was “dismayed” with the HK$120 increase, which it said would provide only “slight relief for the suffering and slave wage of migrant domestic workers in the city.”
Domestic workers are exempt from Hong Kong’s universal minimum wage of HK$42.1 per hour, and must live with their employers.
