Feature: Starting One's Own Business From Unemployment

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Feature: Starting One's Own Business From Unemployment

It could be quite difficult to find a suitable job as Hong Kong was seeing high unemployment rate these days, but Ken Kam managed to find a new way out by starting his own business with the support of the government's Self-employment Business Start-up Assistance Scheme.

"I think starting my own business will be more long term. I am not aggressive and I am not that sort of person wanting to build an empire with my own business. I only want a long term and stable job," Kam said.

The Hong Kong government has implemented a number of measures to increase the number of job vacancies, including the self-employment scheme, which encourages people to retrain themselves and sharpen their skills.

The latest figures showed more than 60,000 jobs had been lost in the past year, with 205,000 people now out of work, the worst level since December 1999, when 208,700 were unemployed. Statistics showed the jobless rate for the past three months to the end of November had climbed to 5.8 percent.

Kam was the first retrainee to be granted the loan from the first class of the full-time self-employment course. He studied the full-time self-employment course organized by the Employees Retraining Board and started his toner trading business with the support of a loan of 100,000 HK dollars, which is the maximum allowed to be granted under the scheme. He successfully got the outsourcing rights from Xerox, a photocopier and printer manufacturer.

Setting up one's own business has its own risks. Kam invested a total of 150,000 HK dollars in the business, and planned to employ two more staff to help him run the company after the Chinese New Year.

Kam was one of three retrainees who successfully applied for the loan and benefited from the self-employment scheme, which was announced by Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa in his 2000 Policy Address. In his policy address, Tung promised to create more than 30,000 jobs in the short term in cultural facilities, healthcare, and welfare services.

The Self-employment Business Start-up Assistance Scheme was implemented in September on a trial basis for two years until 2003. It mainly comprises the provision of suitable self-employment retraining courses and follow-up services to trainees who want to start their own business. The board provides over 20 kinds of support services for its 400 participants, including conferences, seminars, and workshops.

About 30 financial institutions have joined the scheme to offer loans to retrainees. In the past three months, the Employees Retraining Board received over 1,600 applications to join the retraining course, and up to December 12, a total of 250 retrainees successfully graduated.

Up till December 12, about nine retrainees applied for the loan under the scheme, and three applications have been accepted, while one was rejected.

Millie Fung is another applicant for the loan. She has opened her beauty parlor in Monkok for about a month, with an investment of about 80,000 HK dollars. Apart from providing facial treatment service with pearl powder, she also sells Zhejiang-made pearl ornaments in her store, which accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of the business' income.

After giving birth to her daughter, and being unemployed for six months, she thought of setting job her own business, making her interest a business.

"Now, with my own store, I can have a more long term job, as well as having time to take care of my daughter and family," Fung said.

Unemployment Rate Reaches 5.8 Percent in HK