Restrictions on job-hopping are bad for domestic workers
Isla Mairi Wilson says the practice is a coping strategy that helps people secure their future
Asignificant proportion of Hong Kong’s workforce are job-hoppers. According to a 2015 Ipsos survey, 71 per cent of professionals in the city were either planning to or considering changing jobs within the year.
A 2020 survey of Hong Kong workers found almost a third of the respondents had actually switched jobs, driven by salary dissatisfaction and hopes of increasing their income. For some young people, repeatedly switching jobs might even be necessary to secure more senior roles and career opportunities.
Recent discussions about job-hopping have focused on a specific segment of the working population: foreign domestic workers. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the limited pool of these workers in the city and travel restrictions meant demand for them increased.
As a consequence, employers were willing to pay more for domestic work, so bargaining power for salaries went up. Many foreign domestic workers moved to better employment situations as job elasticity increased, leaving some employers unhappy.
The government adopted new policies that appeased disgruntled employers, applying pressure on employment agencies to ensure foreign domestic workers do not change jobs within the two-year contract period and penalising those who do by rejecting future visa applications.
Pressure on agencies will be passed along to workers, who are pushed to stay in jobs regardless of working conditions. The consequence of this is likely to be increased cases of prolonged abuse.
A recent article in the Post mentioned cases of foreign domestic workers “suspected of abusing the right to premature termination”, and quoted an employer whose worker wanted to quit citing heavy workload. What is missing here is a consideration of the heavy workload and other conditions pushing domestic workers to break contracts in the first place.
The major problem with the new job-hopping policies is that they treat exploitation as the exception, but the evidence shows it is not uncommon. While most employers are good, foreign domestic workers are clearly at risk. Nearly 20 per cent of respondents in a 2012 survey reported experiencing physical abuse.
Already this year, the Post has reported on cases of foreign domestic workers being drugged and raped, physically abused and sacked for developing serious illnesses. These reports fly in the face of the narrative that domestic workers are abusing the system; instead, they illustrate what can go wrong when a different set of rules applies to them.
Our research indicates that these workers are already reluctant to report abuse for fear of retaliation, termination or difficulty finding a new job. The risk of changing jobs for them is higher than people think. It includes potential prolonged periods without work, having placements or visas fall through, and being sent home and unable to provide for their family.
Requiring employment agencies to issue refunds to employers for prematurely terminated contracts takes all the pressure off employers to create an attractive working environment. People do not job-hop because it’s fun, but because they feel they need to, and employers must work harder to give them reasons to stay. The same should be true for employers of foreign domestic workers.
Job-hopping is not necessarily a barrier to hiring for local Hongkongers as 60 per cent of chief financial officers surveyed in 2018 said they would hire job-hoppers, noting that they could learn faster and have more skills. Human resources experts have even encouraged workers to job-hop if they have not achieved any recent positive career development.
Workers seeking higher salaries is also a response to redundancies and economic uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic. Residents have reported fears of being laid off at higher rates than workers in neighbouring regions.
In a competitive economic climate, job-hopping is a coping strategy which can help workers secure their future. The same applies to foreign domestic workers. The pandemic was hard on Hong Kong’s families and on domestic workers, who lost jobs and suffered financial losses, all the while acting as frontline workers, cleaning our homes and keeping us safe. This could inform their decision to change jobs.
Recent discussions on job-hopping highlight ongoing shortages of foreign domestic workers in the city, made worse by competition from other markets in the region. The government has long projected that demand for workers will almost double to 600,000 workers by 2047.
Job-hopping rules, which make cases of abuse and their associated publicity more likely, will make Hong Kong a less attractive destination for migrants. Prospective workers could opt to go elsewhere after learning of poor conditions in the city.
While Hong Kong’s policies are meant to ease hiring burdens for employers, they will instead increase competition in hiring at a time when more domestic workers are needed. Instead of restricting job mobility, the government should support employers of foreign domestic workers in creating a good working environment and managing employees in a way that incentivises them to stay.
The entire premise of banning jobhopping goes against Hong Kong’s mantra of being a laissez-faire economy based on competition. The upside of job-hopping is that foreign domestic workers create a labour market that is mutually beneficial for workers and employers through seeking better jobs, advocating for fairer working conditions and attracting new talent. Given our city’s reliance upon foreign domestic workers, we should allow them to job-hop just like the rest of us in the name of creating a healthier economy.
The major problem with the new job-hopping policies is that they treat exploitation as the exception