Hong Kong has imported more than 37,000 workers since the government’s introduction of a labour scheme two years ago, while a construction union has announced a wage freeze for most of the major trades in the industry.

The Labour and Welfare Bureau on Wednesday revealed that it had received applications to import more than 62,000 workers in the catering and hospitality industries since the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme was launched in 2023.

Between September 4, 2023, and September 30 this year, the catering industry applied to import more than 60,000 workers, of whom 35,589 – or nearly 60 per cent – were approved.

More than 11,000 of the approved workers were wait staff – the role with the highest number of imports – while 8,000 were junior cooks.

In the same period, 10 applications involving 44 imported workers were rejected.

The Labour Department made 1,257 job referrals in the catering services sector during the local recruitment period under the scheme, aimed at matching jobseekers with employers that had applied to import labour.