According to the Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union’s survey, construction workers are expecting a salary increment of 3.7 to 11.1 per cent in November 2017, with an average increment of 7.8 per cent.
As reported in the Hong Kong Economic Times, the union asked 7,568 people in the industry about their pay and their upcoming raise.
The results showed that carpenters, painters and bar benders—who lay steel frame foundations—will benefit the most, with a pay rise of more than 10 per cent. Workers who mix, lay and spread concrete can earn as much as HKD2,600 a day, or more than HKD50,000 for a month, if they work 20 days.
Thanks to a construction boom over the past decade, builders’ salaries have increased every year from 2008, doubling since that year and putting their pay on par with professionals. In fact, the surge in construction wages is faster than the city’s overall salary increase in 2017, which was 3.9 per cent according to a separate survey by employment portal jobsDB.
However, union members are still unsatisfied due to lack of regular work, as reported by The South China Morning Post. Workers, such as bar benders and concreters, only worked 13 to 15 days a month this year—a sharp decline from 20 to 22 days a month last year. This meant their monthly income dropped by more than 20 per cent, despite the rise in daily wages, said union chairman Chow Luen-kiu.
Chow attributes to the lack of work to the city’s political tensions and filibustering, which holds up new projects for public works at Legco. In 2017, an overall HKD86 billion worth of projects are expected to be approved, but as of July, Legco had only approved only seven new public projects, worth HK$4.8 billion.— Construction+ Online
