All three sessions of the Labour Department’s compulsory briefing for imported workers under the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS) on 24 July have reached full capacity, underscoring employers’ growing reliance on overseas labour. The sessions—conducted in Putonghua, Cantonese and English—form part of a legal requirement that every ESLS hire attend a rights-and-responsibilities seminar within eight weeks of arrival. The ESLS, revamped in 2023 to shorten processing times and broaden eligible job categories, allows Hong Kong employers to recruit non-local staff for positions that cannot be filled locally after a four-week recruitment drive. Demand has spiked in construction, catering and elderly-care sectors, with quota applications up 35 percent year-on-year, according to industry estimates. Failure to send workers to the briefing can lead to the Labour Department rejecting an employer’s ESLS applications for a full year—a sanction that mobility teams must avoid. Because all July sessions are now oversubscribed, companies unable to secure seats must enrol staff for the 28 July or August dates published on the Labour Department website. Briefings will be cancelled automatically if Typhoon Signal 8 is in force at 8 a.m., in which case employers must re-book. For HR directors managing inbound assignments, the key takeaway is to incorporate briefing registration into onboarding checklists and to budget a paid day off for each attendee, as mandated by Clause 11 of the Standard Employment Contract. Employers should also remember that ESLS hires are capped at 24-month contracts and must receive the same wages and benefits as local staff performing comparable duties. The surge in imported-worker briefings coincides with Hong Kong’s post-pandemic labour crunch and the government’s drive to sustain mega-infrastructure projects such as the Northern Metropolis and Kau Yi Chau artificial-island reclamation.
Source: Hong Kong Labour Department
