Hong Kong to Train 800 Domestic Workers in Elderly Care

By ASIA TIMES STAFF

The Hong Kong government plans to provide training to 800 domestic workers in the third quarter of this year to enable them to provide nursing care for the elderly to meet the increasing demand in the city.

Dr Law Chi-kwong, the bureau chief for labour and welfare has just returned from a three-day visit to the Indonesian capital Jakarta. He revealed that following positive feedback from both employers and domestic workers who had joined a training pilot scheme in elderly care, the government planned to extend the scheme to more districts in the third quarter of this year to train at least 800 workers, Ming Pao Daily reported.

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In 2018, the Labour and Welfare Bureau had launched an 18-month, free-of-charge “Pilot Scheme on Training for Foreign Domestic Helpers on Elderly Care” to strengthen the skills of domestic workers in taking care of elderly persons.

Law revealed that two-thirds of the 300 workers who had finished the pilot scheme were Indonesians.

During his three-day visit to Jakarta, Law met with a number of Indonesian officials, including Indonesian Minister of Manpower Hanif Dhakiri, representative of the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, agent associations, as well as labor training centers.

They exchanged views and strengthened planned cooperation in the protection of Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong, including the cultural gap between Indonesian rural migrant workers and the urbanized workplace in Hong Kong, debt bondage and minimum wages issues, elevenmyanmar.com reported.

(Source: www.atimes.com)