Two lives, one policy: a Mainland nurse and an out-of-work steel-fixer
Chen Xiaomei (not her real name) still remembers the mix of nerves and hope on her first day in Hong Kong. A Mainland nurse, she arrived under the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme (ESLS) to work on the floor of a residential care home. "Two children at school, parents in poor health — back home a nurse earns just over HK$7,000 a month. Here I can make over HK$20,000. It's hard, but it's worth it," she says quietly. Her contract with the home follows the standard terms, her pay meets the industry median, and her paperwork went through a licensed agency. Even so, the agency fee she paid to come was heavy, and the debt travels with her.
Under the same sky, fifty-year-old construction worker Li Weiqiang (also a pseudonym) sits sighing outside a jobs centre in the North District. Twenty years of rebar work once earned him more than HK$30,000 a month; he has now been unemployed for half a year. "Since the imported workers came, my work has dropped ninety per cent. Firms would rather pay HK$16,000 a month for an import than hire us local masters on day rates," he says, shaking his head. He opens his phone to show a rebar workers' group chat, screen after screen of men asking for work, one joking bitterly that the smart move is to emigrate back to the Mainland first — then return as an imported worker, because that is where the opportunities are.
Xiaomei's days are not light. She cares for a dozen or more residents — washing, feeding, turning them — and overtime is routine. What stings more is the cold shoulder from some local colleagues. "They think we've taken their jobs, but I've heard the home's director say my post stood empty for over a year because no local applicant came," she sighs. For context: a Labour Rights Monitor report counts more than 71,000 imported workers approved in the eighteen months after the government sharply loosened the rules in 2023 — nearly 50,000 a year, fifteen times the old pace.
The figures Weiqiang recites are just as stark. "A rebar leading hand's reference day rate was HK$2,930; it's been pressed to HK$2,100 or lower. Imported rebar workers on HK$37,800 a month work out at about HK$1,600 a day — how are local men supposed to quote their rate?" Industry data since the expansion tells the same story: construction unemployment up from 3.9 to 4.6 per cent, with the number of jobless up twenty-two per cent, while underemployment in retail and food and beverage has surged eighty-four and eighteen per cent respectively.
The two have never met, yet the same policy binds their fates. Her nursing helps Hong Kong face an ageing society; his unemployment shows what that help can cost local workers. "Sometimes I feel guilty, but I can't work out where the problem really lies. My family needs to live too, and my children need schooling," she says softly. He is equally direct: "I don't blame the imported workers — they're here to earn a living like anyone. The problem is a policy that hasn't struck the balance, and local workers paying for it."
Both are looking for a way through. Weiqiang is considering courses at the Employees Retraining Board, which runs free, placement-tied training to help the unemployed back into work. Xiaomei hopes to clear her debt and one day bring her children to Hong Kong for school. "I know many people here don't welcome us, but I'll prove my worth," she says.
Their stories frame the policy's complexity honestly. Imported workers fill vacancies locals leave open and keep the economy running; at scale, they also press on wages and local employment. The durable answers, as experts keep saying, are industrial upgrading and automation to reduce reliance on low-skill labour, matched by serious retraining that raises local workers' competitiveness. Hong Kong's task is to find the balance that lets a Xiaomei and a Weiqiang each find a place — and a measure of dignity — in the same city.
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