HK staff work some of longest hours in world
News Commentary Worksheet
(“HK staff work some of longest hours in world”, The Standards, July 18, 2008)
Suggested Answer
A. Comprehension Questions
Try to prepare the news summary with the help of the following guiding questions.
1. According to the research conducted by the Hong Kong
Confederation of Trade Unions, in terms of the number of working
hours per week, what is the ranking of Hong Kong among the 50
countries?
2. Which sectors are seriously affected?
3. According to the news article, who were responsible for the long
working hours?
Summary
HK staff work some of longest hours in world/News Commentary Worksheet/08-09
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B. Economic Analysis and Issue Inquiry
Issue Inquiry：What are the effects of overtime work?
Why are workers asked to work for
longer hours?
How does the situation affect
workers, firms and society?
What are the effects of overtime work?
How can the government solve this problem?
What are the pros and cons of the measures?
Which sectors are seriously
affected? Why?
1. Why workers are asked to work for longer hours?
Reduce the operating cost: The longer the working hours of each worker, the fewer the
number of workers needed to be employed. Also, employers normally do not have to pay for
the overtime work in Hong Kong. Thus, operating cost can be reduced. Employers in return
can enjoy higher profit, given other factors being constant.
2.
What is the relationship between staff turnover rate and overtime work?
Workers’ working incentive and their sense of belongings will be weakened if they are asked
to work for longer hours, so many of them choose to leave from employment. If the number of
workers decreases, employers will therefore ask the existing staff to work even longer hours.
This will only trigger another round of resignation.
3. Suppose employee switch jobs due to long working hours. How would this affect the
operating cost of the firm?
 Employees’ working incentive will be reduced if they are asked to work for longer hours;
they will even consider switching their job. Thus the firm needs to spend extra cost on
recruitment. e.g. post ads. and interview the potential candidates etc.
 Besides, firm needs to spend time on training the new employees. These will affect the
efficiency of the company and increase the training cost.
HK staff work some of longest hours in world/News Commentary Worksheet/08-09
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4(a) What is labour productivity? Please illustrate some factors affecting labour productivity.
 Labour productivity measures the output per worker per unit of time.

Factors affecting labour productivity:
Health condition, working environment, education and training
(b) If workers are asked to work for longer hours, how would this affect the labour
productivity of the firm?
Since the productivity of workers will decrease when they work longer, thus the labour
productivity of the firm would also decrease.
5.
According to the news, which sectors in which the workers are seriously affected?
Retail and security sector
6. What are the features of the workers mentioned in Q.5? (Hints: evaluate in terms of
education level and productivity etc.)
Those workers are low skilled with low education level and low productivity.
7. Even with the problems mentioned in Q.2 and Q.3, why are the workers in the sectors
mentioned in Q.5 still willing to work overtime? Explain with reference to the features
figured in Q.6.
Employers will insist to do it as long as the cost is smaller than the benefit. The reasons why
the employers mentioned in Q5 still insist workers work overtime are as follows:



Employers can easily find the replacement: Workers in these sectors are not required
to possess much skill. Thus, employers can easily find the replacement if workers quit
the job due to the long working hours. Normally the workers in these sectors are
low-skilled, thus they don’t have much bargaining power.
Low training cost: Workers in these sectors do not have much special skill, the
training cost involved is relatively low. Employers do not really concern too much
about the extra cost arose when workers quit their job.
Common practice in these sectors: As the cost of turnover is relatively small in these
sectors, every firm in these sectors requests workers work overtime. As a result,
workers are indifferent in working in which firm. They may not change their job due to
the abovementioned reasons. It is a common practice in these sectors to work overtime.
8.
Apart from labour productivity, how would overtime work affect society?
Social and Family problems: Long working hours do not only affect employees’ health
condition, but also generate many family problems.
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9. Recently, some trade unions urge that the government should address the problem of
long work hours. They request the government to pass a law to regulate maximum working
hours. Can you think of the pros and cons of passing the law?
Pros:
The number of working population may increase: If the government enforces the maximumworking- hour law, firms need to employ more workers to finish the work.
Cons:
Employees’ benefits may be deprived: Employers may recruit part-time workers instead of
full-time workers. For example, the firm can employ two part-time workers (each works for 5
hours) with the same cost of employing one full-time worker (8 working hours). In this way,
the total number of working hours will increase, but the benefits of the workers will be
deprived, e.g. MPF, paid annual leave etc.
Remarks：

If students are capable enough, teachers can go further by asking students to prepare another
piece of news commentary. They can try to address another reason for the decline in the
sense of belongings of the employees. E.g. not having “equal pay for equal work” and pay
rises unsatisfactory etc. Please refer to the news “Gulf widen on pay expectation”.
References:
Workers deserve holiday equality (Editorial) (2008, May 13). South China Morning Post, P.
EDT14
Joyce Man, “Bosses offering wrong incentives for overtime”, (2008, July 17). South China
Morning Post, P. TY4
Damon Pang, “Gulf widens on pay expectation”, (2008, January 14). The Standards, P.11
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