Employees Retraining Scheme

The Employees Retraining Scheme (ERS) was set up in 1992 to provide retraining to eligible workers to assist them to take on new or enhanced skills so that they can adjust to changes in the economic environment, and have their employability enhanced. It is administered by the Employees Retraining Board (ERB) which is an independent statutory body set up under the Employees Retraining Ordinance and comprises representatives from the Government, employers, employees, training institutions and human resources professionals. In addition to regular income from a levy collected under the labour importation scheme, the Government is providing a recurrent subvention to the ERB from 2001-02 onwards. The subvention in 2001-02 amounts to $400 million.

The ERS focuses on assisting displaced workers who have experienced difficulties in finding alternative employment. The main target group of the scheme is displaced workers aged 30 or over with lower secondary education or below. The scheme offers a wide variety of full-time and part-time courses delivered through a network of over 50 approved training bodies. The courses broadly fall into seven categories: courses on job search skills, job-specific skills, general skills (computer and vocational English), courses for the elderly, courses for people with disabilities, tailor-made courses and self-employment courses.

During the year, 42 755 full-time and 45 302 part-time retraining places were provided under the ERS. The two Retraining Resource Centres, in Yau Ma Tei and Lok Fu respectively, continued to provide self-learning facilities, job market information and other supporting services to all graduate retrainees. They reinforced the effectiveness of the ERS.

In one of its new initiatives to help relieve unemployment, the ERB began to offer full-time core courses and skills specific courses for eligible workers to seek self-employment, in addition to part-time ones. This is complemented by a Self-employment Business Start-up Assistance Scheme through which graduate retrainees are able to obtain a bank loan to start a business, with the Government acting as guarantor for the loan.