Hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line as unrest continues
Updated: 2019-10-29 07:41 (HK Edition)
More than four months of anti-government protests have brought key HK businesses, notably the tourism and retail sectors, to their knees with plunging visitor numbers, deserted streets and badly vandalized public transport systems.
It’s been a rotten summer for the small and medium enterprises of Hong Kong’s service sector, with up to two-thirds of revenue lost due to riots by anti-government protesters. Pressure on small businesses has led to the introduction of some government relief measures, including subsidies, but they may be too late, already. Industry insiders fear a recession is inevitable, setting off a wave of job losses, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of employees.
The service sector has become a vital component of Hong Kong’s gross domestic product and employment. According to a report by International Air Transport Association in 2019, in total 330,000 jobs are supported by air transport and tourists arriving by air, with the air transport sector and foreign tourists arriving by air accounting for 10.2 percent of Hong Kong’s GDP. Another 250,000 people work in catering; 271,000 in retail, according to the statistics for 2019 by the city’s Census and Statistics Department.
Customers have been scarce, these past four months – travelers from other parts of the world are staying away, in fear of being caught up amid the chaos of gasoline bombs, and bricks and fires.Local people have cut back on dining out and other entertainment. They’re also worried about safety and the uncertainties of local transportation. Tour guides are suffering, badly. Most don’t get a basic salary. Their incomes are from commissions from hosting visiting tour groups. “No visitors, no income,” said Stephen Chan Siu-lun, chairman of the Hong Kong Certified Tour Escort Association. These past few months, he says his income has dropped to a third of what it is normally. The industry relies heavily on summer holidays. The bulk of its annual income is earned in summer. That’s gone now. Statistics show that Hong Kong’s visitor arrivals this August, dropped nearly 40 percent year-on-year. This year’s National Day holiday, normally a “Golden Week” for tourists to visit Hong Kong, saw visitor numbers drop by 50 percent from normal, as mainland tourists chose to go somewhere else. During the normal peak season, 400 to 500 tour groups arrive in the city every day, bringing in around 20,000 tourists. Since August, no more than 15 tour groups were coming each day. In the worst case, Asia’s World City had fewer than 100mainland visitors coming with tour groups,said Chan. Chan also recalled that the Avenue of Stars, a landmark along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui, never had enough parking spaces. With tour buses backed up outside, the Transport Department had to add additional five parking places this January, to relieve the pressure. “If you go there now, you can hardly find a single tour bus,” said Chan.
Some travel agencies are laying off staff, already. If it gets any worse, some of the small travel agencies will have to close, he said. Some other tour guides have quit already, to look for work elsewhere, or they’re trying to make do by working part time. Times are tough though, and with the whole city caught in the uproar, jobs are scarce. “How can you create enough new jobs to cope with rising unemployment when everyone is hunting for a job?” Chan asked. Yung, a 52-year-old tour bus driver, sits and waits for calls. He started looking for a new job after the traditional peak season of week-long National Holiday period, starting Oct 1, proved to be a bust. Yung drives a cross-boundary coach, a transport service for short travels between Hong Kong and cities of Guangdong province. His company was affiliated with a travel agency. Once mainland passengers had lost interest in Hong Kong, business declined. Some of Yung’s colleagues already have made the change, with some hiring on as security guards. “I have been doing this (driving) for two decades. I was able to do nothing but drive,” said Yung.
Hospitality and catering are suffering, as tourists stay away. Forced unpaid leave has already fallen on many workers, leaving them struggling for a livelihood. Philip Wong, owner of a pub in Causeway Bay, no longer hires part-time staff as extra hands for rush hours, because there aren’t any rush hours anymore. Some full-time employees have had their hours cut, to six, even four hours a day, as management struggles to cut costs. Bars report an average 30 percent decline in revenue in August and a further 10 percent drop in September, according to the Hong Kong Bar and Club Association. The social climate has become too dispirited for people to want to spend time drinking and dancing, said Wong.
Since the city’s Mass Transit Railways Corporation cut back on operating hours,people tend to go straight home after work. Metro stations have been shutting down hours before the normal 1 am closure, to carry out maintenance, after more than 80 of 93 stations were vandalized by radical protesters. Even as the city’s most important public transportation system reduces services, the rest do not see more passengers to make up for the drop in tourists. Taxi drivers’ turnover has continued falling in recent months, from a drop of about 10 percent in early June, to more than 50 percent in October, according to Taxi Drivers and Operators Association Secretary-General Wong Tai-hoi. The association represents 50,000 taxi drivers in the city. Previously, a taxi driver’s average income was HK$500-600 per day, after about HK$600 in basic expenses for car rental and gasoline. A driver these days may not make enough to cover his operating costs, let alone earning enough to support a family.
To mitigate the impact on tourism, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, as well as Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah,have introduced policies to support distressed industries.Remedies include rent relief, and other forms of subsidies. Every travel agency will receive HK$120 cash for each inbound tourist who stays overnight, and HK$100 cash handout for each outbound tourist. The question remains, will there be any tourists? Many tourists, who ended up in Hong Kong in September just because they could not cancel their bookings, constantly asked tour guides, “can you guarantee my safety in Hong Kong?” As a tour leader, Chan found himself unable to give an answer with certainty. “Those mobs indiscriminately assaulted anyone holding a different view.” “We can only try our best to remind members of our tour groups to stay away from places where violence is likely to occur,” he said. That note of caution, however, can carry little weight, since much of the rioting takes place in areas popular with tourists; areas in Hong Kong’s central shopping districts, like Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay. On Oct 20, masked rioters rampaged through Hong Kong’s Yau Tsim Mong district – a core urban area. They broke into shops and bank branches and set fires at metro stations. Traffic was paralyzed throughout the area. Metro services were suspended and roads were blocked by protesters. Australian tourist Sophie Norr told China Daily on Oct 21, that she had to walk from Tsim Sha Tsui to Jordan that morning, after failing to find any passable entrances at Tsim Sha Tsui station. Only four of 11 entrances of the station remained functional. Norr said she was “scared” to see rampaging protesters, and that she had scrapped her plans to tour the city on Sunday.
What’s more, a tourism industry insider describes himself as pessimistic that the government’s economic departments can save the industry from recession. “If we continue to survive on government funding, even the government will feel overwhelmed one day,” Chan pointed out. He said he hoped the situation would calm down as soon as possible, saying it would be an important step toward relieving the plight of the tourism industry.
China Daily (HK Edition 10/29/2019 page7)