Social News
Author: Lao Minyi
2020-07-19 11:31
Last update date: 2020-07-19 11:31The Legislative Council passed the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2019 earlier, increasing the statutory maternity leave from the current 10 weeks to 14 weeks. The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Luo Zhiguang, said in his blog today (19th) that there is no evidence to prove that prolonging maternity leave will increase the fertility rate. It is strange and ridiculous for most Members to think that the government’s policy purpose is to encourage childbirth. We have no intention of interfering with the decision of individual families to have children."
Luo Zhiguang said that there was no evidence to prove that prolonging maternity leave would increase fertility. It was strange and ridiculous for most Members to think that the government’s policy was to encourage fertility. (Profile picture)
Luo Zhiguang said that he found that many Members still have a lot of misunderstandings about the government’s policy stance, explaining that government documents, their public statements and blogs have never pointed out that the purpose of the amendment is to encourage childbirth, and there is no evidence to prove that the statutory Increasing maternity leave from 10 weeks to 14 weeks will increase the fertility rate, even if there are only very few.
He wrote that Hong Kong’s fertility rate has continued to decline in recent years. Last year’s social movement may have led to a further decline in fertility this year. The epidemic this year has significantly reduced the number of registered marriages in Hong Kong, which may further reduce fertility next year. Hong Kong’s low fertility rate is not low.
The Labour Department plans to outsource the new four-week maternity leave payback mechanism
Luo also mentioned that although the legislative amendments have been passed by the Legislative Council, it still takes time to set up a new four-week maternity leave reimbursement mechanism. He pointed out that if the government department is to carry out the relevant work, according to the existing required procedures, the relevant work will take up to 18 months. In response to the expectations of the community, the Labour Department plans to outsource the relevant work, hoping that the reimbursement mechanism can be established. Time shortened by six months.
He also pointed out that since female employees generally start maternity leave two to four weeks before the expected date of birth, and the government’s reimbursement for maternity leave belongs to the 11th to 14th week of maternity leave, it is expected that the employer will be at least three months after the childbirth date of the female employee. The application for the reimbursement of maternity leave pay is submitted, so the effective date of the extension of maternity leave can be reasonably set about three months or earlier before the establishment of the reimbursement mechanism. The government will strive for the legislative amendments to take effect before the end of the year.
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