A Workfare Scheme: say no to maximum working hour legislation.

Shortly after the setup of minimum wage policy, our community now is calling for maximum working hour legislation, on top of the demanding of minimum wage adjustment to HK$33-35, so as to protect the welfare of the less-privileged groups. It sets up a lobbying for further benefits and attempts to provide a more than comfortable living for the grassroots, creates a negative incentive problem to the society. To find an equitable solution in this regard is difficult, as this problem is a dilemma in economics, the equity-efficiency tradeoff. Is our community asking too much to compensate for the increasing unequal society? Restaurants are finding themselves increasingly difficult to recruit dishwashers and waiters. White collar workers could now receive payrolls significantly less than blue collar workers. Implementation on maximum working hour will further distort the labour market by raising the price floor above the market equilibrium. , but what else can we do? To be highly motivated and self-reliance are very important. Alternatively, can the workfare scheme be a feasible solution for us? Singapore has a Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) Scheme that provides supplement wages to the low-income groups with two advantages: First, it provides incentive to induce people to work, and second, it does not intervene and distort the labour market and allows businesses to hire at the market prices. WIS targets individuals above 35 years with monthly income less than SGD$ 1,700 (roughly HKD$ 10,000, but Singapore is more expensive to live and requires larger CPF contributions than Hong Kong). The supplement is a combination of cash-handout and retirement scheme injection, or the CPF in Singapore, which helps to alleviate poverty in Singapore. Hong Kong has a good pre-existing condition to implement this policy, namely, the minimum wage law, to ensure workers will not get deprived. All we need is a minimum working hour to minimise possible shirking in this workfare scheme. Of course the labour market is too complex to be explained by a few hundred words, I personally view the workfare scheme as a better option than maximum working hour for the labour market, and more importantly, for our labour intensive, service-based economy. They policy can also serves as substitute to encourage the unemployed/underemployed CSSA recipients to rejoin the labour market.