[New Crown Pneumonia] After the epidemic, the economy is uncertain, the government should actively intervene

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Written by: comment editing room

2020-11-03 06:30

Last update date: 2020-11-03 06:30

If the number of newly confirmed cases after the Halloween holiday is limited, the epidemic situation in Hong Kong can be described as stable.

But on the economic side, the impact has not yet fully surfaced, especially in the tourism, catering and other industries, the unemployment rate cannot be said to have peaked.

At this time, the Secretary of Labor and Welfare Law Chi-kwong and the Financial Secretary Chen Maobo judged that the economic situation of Hong Kong has stabilized and there is no need for the third round of employment protection programs.

This view is likely to be a misjudgment of reality, which makes the governance not close to the pulse of the society and does not help to cope with the crisis.

The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Law Chi-kwong, stated on his blog on Sunday (1st) that as the epidemic in Hong Kong has begun to ease, “the labour market is also showing signs of stabilization”, and cited the number of job vacancies received by the Labour Department to support him. Discourse.

However, Director Luo is not the only official who is optimistic about the economic outlook.

The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, also described in an interview last Saturday (31st) that the current economic situation in Hong Kong seems to be bottoming out. Therefore, the Hong Kong government will not launch the third round of the employment protection plan, and believes that customs clearance with the Mainland can stimulate the economy. For use.

The combined unemployment rate in the retail, accommodation and catering services industry rose to 11.7%.

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The wave of graduation or the end of the year

Even though Chen Maobo believes that the future economic situation still depends on the epidemic, even if there is no next wave of epidemics, the economic prospects of Hong Kong may not be as optimistic as the two expected.

First of all, the above judgment assumes that the winter epidemic is stable. At least there will be no serious situation like the third wave. However, the local infection cases have not been "cleared". Recently, the Staycation group suddenly appeared, and the hidden worry still exists; secondly, no. After few employers applied for the first round of the employment protection program, they found that the epidemic would be longer than expected. This not only weakened the government’s use of additional money to lure employers to "guarantee employment", but also used layoffs or closures to withstand the economic freeze, especially The current miserable situation in the tourism industry is not surprising.

Furthermore, Luo Zhiguang uses the total number of job vacancies to judge the stability of the labor market, which is worthy of consideration.

On the one hand, the large number of vacancies in the labor market is not necessarily the result of business expansion. It may also be the result of the company's layoffs in recent months. The company wants to replace employees with low-age and low-paid employees to achieve the effect of reducing expenditure.

On the other hand, even if there are too many positions, it does not mean that these vacancies will absorb all the unemployed. On the contrary, it is more important to see whether the job requirements are consistent with the skills and wishes of the job seekers. Therefore, the principal officials should not be overly optimistic and only reduce the public. A sense of crisis, but lack of foresight.

Although after the government launched two rounds of anti-epidemic funds, the Hong Kong government's estimated consolidated deficit this year has exceeded 300 billion yuan, but since the epidemic is still likely to come back, the authorities need to adjust the targeting of poverty relief and economic stimulus measures.

In particular, the unemployment rate of consumer tourism and catering service activities has reached 11.7% and 9.5% respectively, and the unemployment rate of young people between 20 and 24 has exceeded 20%. The situation is worrying.

Therefore, even if the current epidemic gradually stabilizes, the Hong Kong government should walk on two legs and try its best to conceive solutions for different situations, and abandon the style of watching the changes.

Only in this way can we respond to changes in a timely manner and reduce the misjudgment of economic prospects.

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