The Long–Term Effectiveness of the Hong Kong Employees Retraining Programme

The Employees Retraining Programme in Hong Kong was promoted as the solution to structural unemployment resulting from rapid transformation of the economy. However, our study of the labour market performance of a group of trainees shows no evidence of any positive programme effect, more than three years after the completion of training, when compared to a group of job searchers. In particular, full time training is found to be less effective than part time training, and training in general skills is significantly less effective than training in specific occupational skills. This suggests problems in the design and implementation of retraining in Hong Kong.