What kind of age discrimination do women workers suffer from?
In the retail and services sector, for instance, women over 30 cannot find work as they are considered to be “too old”. Another type of discrimination affects people under 22, who generally have a lot of difficulty getting hired, but in this case it is the women that are at an advantage when it comes to recruitment, as employers like to have “young and pretty” women on their staff. Looks are very important in Hong Kong. You are the general secretary of the HKCTU textile and clothing sector union. Is this still a key sector in Hong Kong? Over the last 20 years, the number of employees in this sector has gone from 320,000 to 32,000, 80% of whom are employed as clerical staff and the rest as “technical” workers (cleaning, replacing “Made in China” labels with “Made in Hong Kong” labels, etc.) With the economic crisis, another 10,000 people out of these 32,000 have been laid off or are under-employed. There used to be a lot of managers from Hong Kong among these 32,000; they used to work i
