The Job Matching Programme (JMP) is a pro-active employment action of Hong Kong labour administration providing unemployed persons with comprehensive employment services comprising in-depth interview, counselling, active job matching and, where appropriate, referral to tailor-made retraining.

First introduced by the Public Employment Services (PES) in April 1995, the JMP is delivered by a case officer approach. Each JMP registrant is attended by a placement officer who will follow him or her through the job seeking process until he or she settles on a new job or is referred to attend a retraining course to enhance his or her employability.

The JMP has proven to be an effective action in helping the unemployed to seek gainful employment; it has achieved very good placement results and has a successful rate of 60% so far.

The Interactive Employment Service

The Interactive Employment Service (IES), applying the latest Internet technology, was introduced in March 1999. It builds on the huge computerized data bank maintained by the Public Employment Service (PES), i.e. the job-seekers pool and vacancies pool, and uses a search engine to conduct automatic job matching.

Employers and job-seekers can access the information 24 hours a day, from home, office, and literally any part of the world. Users can contact their counterparts directly or through the PES.

The IES enhances the efficiency, effectiveness, and the transparency of the PES and has proven to be extremely popular among the better educated job-seekers. In the first 21/2 months, it has attracted 11.231 job-seekers with 315.198 hits, searching mostly for professional and associate professional posts as well as clerical posts.

Asian Financial Crisis

Affected by the Asian financial crisis, the unemployment rate in Hong Kong reached a record height of 6.3% in February to April 1999. Altogether, 216.000 persons were out of job. The number of vacancies shrunk from 47.200 in the first quarter of 1997 to 25.350 in the 4^th quarter of 1998. Hong Kong has never experienced such a serious unemployment situation for more than three decades. A high level Task Force on Employment chaired personally by the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong SAR Government met monthly since mid-1998 to promote job creation and to monitor the employment situation. The public employment service was under unprecedented pressure to innovate and to deliver.

Mission

The mission statement of the Hong Kong Labour Department's PES has been updated to "provide a responsive, client oriented, efficient and cost effective employment service for employers and job-seekers to meet the changing needs in the labour market." This has been set against the background of the five values of the department, viz. professional excellence, pro-activeness, premier customer service, partnership and participation.

Job Vacancy Processing Centre

Hong Kong has a vibrant free market economy. Despite the recession, new vacancies come up in the market every day. Efforts have been directed to facilitate employers in reporting vacancies to the PES. A central Job Vacancy Processing Centre (JVPC) was opened for employers in February 1999.

The JVPC receives hundreds of vacancies a day, mostly by fax. Information is verified and entered into the computerized PES data bank within 24 hours, and made available to all job centres. The PES conducts regular analysis of the wage levels of the vacancies received and share the information with all placement officers. Officers are therefore in a better position to advise employers where the terms offered is significantly below the market rate.

Telephone Employment Service

The rise in unemployment rate results in an upsurge of job-seekers visiting the job centres everyday. Despite additional staff resources, job-seekers sometimes had to be turned away because the appointment books were all full. This created frustration among job-seekers. Attention was directed to develop a more user-friendly system for our clients.

A new system was introduced in February 1999 whereby a job-seeker not requiring an appointment on the same day could register at any job centre by completing a simple form supplying personal particulars, skills possessed and past work experience. The information would be entered into the computerized PES data bank. On the following day, the job-seeker could ring up the newly introduced Telephone Employment Service. A staff could simultaneously engage the job-seeker and the prospective employer over the phone, and perform job matching and arrange job interviews for them.

Open Job Orders

Developing a user-friendly service means providing more options for both employers and job-seekers. With effect from June 1998, employers have the option of opening up their vacancy orders for direct application from job-seekers. This was an important step forward from the traditional approach where the identity of employers would remain anonymous and all applications for a job has to be arranged through the PES. Open job orders reduce the steps to be taken between the job applicant and the employer and speeds up the recruitment process. It has become more and more popular among both employers and job-seekers. In less than a year, the percentage of employers opting for open job orders has increased from around 30% to over 50%.

Self and Semi-self Service

The latest job vacancies are displayed in job centres, and accessible through the Internet. Job-seekers can screen the vacancies displayed and make one's own selection. They can respond to the vacancies either directly, in the case of an open job order, or through a placement officer in the job centre. The self and semi-self service is speedy and efficient.

Job Matching Programme (JMP)

A more intensive and personalized service has been offered through the Job Matching Programme to job-seekers facing greater problems in job search. The JMP was first introduced in April 1995 against a background when unemployment rate rose to 2.8%, with more than 50.000 vacancies in the labour market still remained unfilled, and yet with many job-seekers who were unable to find a job on their own. The anomaly put into doubt the previous assumption that job-seekers should be able to look after themselves as long as there are sufficient vacancies available in the market.

The Job Matching Programme incorporates job counselling, job matching, referral for job interviews, and where applicable, referral to appropriate retraining courses funded by the Employees Retraining Board. The JMP has a higher success rate than self service. However, as job-seekers have to book their appointments a few days in advance, most job-seekers tend to opt for the faster route of self service or semi-self service. The JMP provides a fall back position for job-seekers.

The increasing popularity of the Job Matching Programme and the very heavy demand on staff resources prompted the introduction in mid-1999 of a group briefing session and a workshop before job-seekers are interviewed individually and referred for interviews. The JMP scheme is regularly reviewed and revised in the light of practical experience and clients' feedback.

Referral to retraining provides an alternative to job-seekers who are identified during the briefing session and the workshop as not fully ready for immediate placement or who would stand a better chance to pursue their preferred choice of career after retraining. Having identified the retraining needs of JMP registrants, placement officers would refer them to training bodies for attending retraining courses. There is standing arrangements in place whereby training bodies of the Employees Retraining Scheme would give priority to JMP registrants in need of retraining to attend full-time training courses. Most people are able to find gainful employment after retraining, either through the placement service of training bodies or the JMP.

a) Group briefing

Group briefings under the JMP are conducted on a regular basis under major job categories, e.g. professional and associate professional, clerical, personal service, construction, property management, or elementary jobs. Briefings are conducted by experienced placement officers in the job centre. Participants have to submit, at the time of enrollment, personal particulars, education attainment, work experience, job preference and salary expectations. A profile of participants will be prepared to facilitate the instructor to address the problems encountered by participants and to highlight the latest market opportunities available to them. The briefings covers the latest market information, job requirements, wage levels, working conditions, career prospects, and free retraining opportunities available. It also covers basic skills in job search, such as self analysis, market positioning, networking, interviewing skills, access to public and private employment services, access to retraining courses, and how to bridge the gap between subjective expectations with market realities through a systematic collection and interpretation of market information.

b) Workshop

A workshop will follow the briefing session. Participants will be divided into small groups. The workshop will focus on job search, market adjustment and interviewing skills. There is experience sharing among group members in their recent experiences in job search, what problems they have encountered, what mistakes can be identified and how they can do it better. There is also an exercise in the analysis of the market trend of a particular job based on vacancies advertised in a popular newspaper. The objective market information will be used in a case study to adjust a job-seeker's salary expectation. And practical problems such as how to make the ends meet will be tackled. More than one placement officer will be involved, as tutors, in the workshop. The tutors will make notes on the performance and the perceived strength and weaknesses of individual participants and produce another profile of the participants.

Based on the performance in the workshop, and based on the perceived level of motivation in job search, participants will be grouped under three categories, the ready, the not so ready and those requiring further personal assistance.

c) Job matching

With the benefit of the observation of individual job-seekers actual performance during the workshop, the placement officer is in a better position to identify suitable job vacancies from the computerized data bank. For participants in the "ready" group, the placement officer will keep on making referrals for the job-seeker until he or she lands on a job. For participants in the "not so ready" group, one or two referrals will still be made, if they so wish, for less demanding jobs. But they will be advised of the retraining opportunities available to them. For participants in the group requiring further attention, the placement officer will open a case file for each individual job-seeker and provide one-to-one intensive counseling and job matching service until he or she has found a job.

Promotion

A dedicated team of staff under the Employment Information and Promotion Programme undertakes promotion of the Public Employment Service, including JMP. The team is responsible for staging various publicity and promotional activities to introduce the programme to job-seekers and employers. These activities included holding job bazaars, staging exhibitions, conducting briefing sessions and recruitment seminars, publishing pamphlets and leaflets. Recruitment seminars are organised so that employers could meet job-seekers face-to-face for introducing vacancies in their respective industries and establishments. Focus-group discussions are introduced in mid-1999 to improve communication with major end users of the PES, and to seek their advise on the future development of the PES. Responses from end users are most encouraging. The team also introduces details of the PES to employers associations, personnel managers and human resources executives through briefing sessions and major seminars. These promotional activities are very important in winning the support of employers, job-seekers and the public for the programme.

Administration

In Hong Kong, the governmental agency responsible for formulating employment policy is the Education and Manpower Bureau. In respect of employment policy formulation, the work of the Bureau is to formulate, develop and review policies, programmes and legislation in respect of employment including manpower planning, training and retraining, employment services, labour importation schemes, labour relations, employees' rights and benefits and health and safety at work. The Bureau assumes policy responsibility for the services provided by the agencies within its purview, among which is the Labour Department. Provision of public employment services is among one of the four programme areas of the Labour Department. The Education and Manpower Bureau has direct policy lead on the PES and the latter is also accountable to the Bureau for its performance and implementation of employment service polices.

The PES falls within the purview of one of the Assistant Commissioners who is responsible for, among other things, formulating polices in respect of various types of employment services delivery. It is composed of mainly two divisions, namely the Employment Services Division offering employment service to normal job-seekers, and the Selective Placement Division offering dedicated employment service to job-seekers with disabilities.

The Employment Services Division is the major service provider of public employment services in Hong Kong. Free placement services are provided to job-seekers through a network of nine employment centres under its Local Employment Service (LES). It provides free recruitment assistance to employers and employment services to normal job-seekers. This Division is the major provider of PES and serves some 190.000 job-seekers in 1998.

The Selective Placement Division of the Labour Department is the major service provider of public employment service for job-seekers with disabilities. A one-to-one counselling, placement and follow-up service is provided for every job-seeker. The service is even more intensive than the JMP in terms of time and attention given to each individual job-seeker. The service is free and the Division works in close collaboration with the Employees Retraining Board and Non-Government Organisations offering specialized services to people with disabilities. The Division served 3.598 job-seekers in 1998, and 1.455 of them were successfully placed in the open job market.

It is the policy of the Hong Kong SAR government to require government agencies to lay down their own performance pledges and make them known to the public, so that the public can monitor their service quality. As far as the employment service for able-bodied job-seekers is concerned, its performance pledges are:

put vacancy information on display within 24 hours upon receipt;
attend to job-seekers within 30 minutes of the appointed time;
provide written guidelines to every fresh registrant on employment service;
provide in-depth career counseling session to Job Matching Programme registrants within one week after registration.

Whereas the performance pledges of the employment service for job-seekers with disabilities are:

attend to job-seekers with disabilities for counseling or pre-referral interview within 15 minutes of the appointed time;
provide vocational assessment interview to job-seekers with disabilities within 2 weeks upon receipt of request for employment assistance;
provide follow-up service to the employer and employee for 3 months after placement to ensure successful job settlement;
issue replies by fax to hearing-impaired job-seekers within 1 working day upon receipt of enquiries through fax;
entertain immediately requests from non-government organisations and schools for free loan service of employment related videos.

The senior management of the PES is entirely comprised of government officials who have in their life careers been trained as labour administrators. These officers have wide exposure in labour administration and hence have rich experiences in the fields of labour relations, employee rights and benefits, and employment services. Their rich exposures enable them to formulate policies on employment services delivery from the perspective of labour administration. In operational terms, it also means that in the delivery of employment services, due consideration would be given to assisting job-seekers to land on jobs guaranteeing appropriate rights and benefits.

The PES service outlets, including the Local Employment Service (LES) offices, are each managed by an office manager. The office manager is solely responsible for matters taking place in the centre. These include the general administrative work, supervision of staff, quality of services provided and quantity of work achieved. Under his or her supervisor is a team of staff each of which is assigned with specific duties like office administration, placement work, or provision of supporting service. All these officers are accountable to the office manager for their own performance. The office manager makes annual appraisal reports of individual staff under his chain of command in the office. These appraisal reports have direct bearing on the promotion prospects of the officers concerned. Where necessary, the office manager can also take out disciplinary action against officers who fail to attain the standards laid down. As the performance of each service outlet is the aggregate efforts of all staff working therein, the leadership and supervisor role of the office manager is hence very important.

All permanent staff in the PES are civil servants who are recruited centrally. The effect of the Asian financial crisis resulted in an upsurge in the demand for service. The number of job-seekers registered in PES rose from 8.878 in January to 23.522 in May 1998. Temporary staff who are not civil servants have been engaged on month-to-month contracts to cope with the additional workload. Special on-the-job training is given to the staff. They have given exemplary service to job-seekers. The managers of the service outlets are labour administrators with university education who have acquired extensive exposure in the labour administration field before they are promoted to the rank. The immediate assistants of the office managers are also university graduates but with shorter service and experience in the department. However, their heavy engagement in placement work and their updated knowledge of labour market movements will help to build up their expertise in delivering good employment services. Under this group of supervisory officers are a team of operational staff whose main duties are to refer job-seekers to attend interviews with prospective employers. These operational staff have generally completed upper secondary education. Most of them have worked as placement officers in the PES for some time and thus have sufficient knowledge about requirements of different types of jobs in the labour market.

The level of pay for PES officers follows strictly the pay scale laid down by the civil service. Generally speaking, the level of pay of PES officers compares favourably to the market rate. Officers in general are highly committed to their jobs partly because they see the value of their contribution, especially during the economic downturn, and partly because of the team spirit. Key performance indicators of the 11 LES offices and the 3 SPD offices are released internally on monthly basis. They cover the numbers of job-seekers, vacancies, referrals and successful placements and caseload per staff. Every office is able to find its own position in the league table. Offices with good performance are singled out for mention in monthly management meetings. Individual officers with exceptionally good performance are singled for commendation and are reported in their annual appraisal reports.

Each LES office is staffed by 10 to 20 staff, depending on the clientele size of the geographical districts to be served by the LES office. However, the number of staff has lately been increased to provide service to the greatly increased number of job-seekers after the Asian financial turmoil. Every placement officer has in front of him or her one computer terminal connected on-line to the main database network. He has also one telephone set with him. job-seekers requiring employment service are placed in front of the placement officers who will perform job matching or call up employers for arrangement of job interviews. This face-to-face contact facilitates immediate clarification of job-seekers qualifications and preferences where necessary, and enhance communication between employers and job-seekers before an interview actually takes place. Upon confirmation of job interviews, a computer printout will be given to the job-seeker as a referral letter.

As the LES offices are highly computerised, each officer is provided with ample training so that they are conversant with the application and input methods of the computer system. Since placement officers may need to receive clients speaking different languages, they are also required to be fluent in both spoken Chinese and English. As far as Chinese language is concerned, most officers can communicate in Putonghua (the official Chinese dialect) on top of the most commonly used dialect (Cantonese) in Hong Kong.

The PES is highly automated, which is also a characteristic of Hong Kong businesses. All the LES offices are connected by a computer network and they share a common database of vacancies and job-seekers. Any LES office can access this database for retrieving vacancy and job-seekers information. This system greatly facilitates job matching work. It also breaks the previous geographical limitations of different LES offices as the information of all vacancies and job-seekers is pooled together and can be used by placement officers in all districts. job-seekers can register in any LES offices they prefer, with most of them either approaching the ones nearest to their residence or most easily accessible.

Computerisation also has another significant impact on the PES service. It helps to break the traditional mode of service delivery. Before the LES was computerised, job-seekers and vacancy information were kept on paper records. Information sharing was very difficult or inefficient. Computerisation of the LES has made information sharing much easier.

On the side of the employers, upon computerisation of the LES in early 1998, employers can pass their vacancy information to the LES via Internet. The LES has put up a specified vacancy order form in its Internet website. Employers can through the Internet fill in the form and pass the vacancy information to the LES. Once such information has been entered into the LES database, job-seekers performing simple job-matching either on the Internet or through the self-served computer terminals located in each of the LES offices can access to such vacancy information. This system thus enables a much wider scope of vacancy information dissemination.

The 11 LES offices are connected by an on-line computer network. The network first came into operation in April 1998. The computer network links up the data of vacancies and particulars of job-seekers available at all the employment service offices. In addition, job-seekers have access to all the vacancies available in the LES through self-served computer terminals installed in each office. Using these computer terminals, job-seekers can perform simple job matching by themselves. They can also obtain the most up-to-date vacancy information through the Internet.

To enable the JMP to perform more effectively, in December 1995 an additional funding of HK$2 million was obtained to install a local area computer network system at LES offices to further improve the JMP. Since January 1996, each placement officer was provided with a computer to enable him to input registrants' records and perform computerised job matching. The network system was interconnected by modems so that data could be communicated among different work stations. This system had facilitated JMP vacancy information updating and better communication among LES offices. The system was replaced by an upgraded and further enhanced network upon computerization of the LES in early 1998.

Although an active service deliverer itself, the PES of the Labour Department does not work alone in pursuance of its goals. The Local Employment Service works closely with the Employees Retraining Board for identification of training needs and referral of displaced workers. It also maintains a very close contact with employers for canvassing vacancies. To further enhance this function, an Employment Information and Promotion Programme was launched in mid 1998 to develop relations with major employers and canvass vacancies actively. On the part of workers, the service liaises closely with trade unions for purpose of tapping the changes in the labour market. In the event when employers need to recruit a large number of workers, trade unions are also resorted to as they are important source providers of skilled workers.

The Job Matching Programme as well as overall activities of the PES are funded from the annual budget of the Labour Department. The total expenditure of the Department for 1998/99 was HK$703.3 million up from HK$507.2 million in 1996/97. The computerisation of the Employment Services Division including those functions responsible for the implementation the Job Matching Programme amounted to HK$28 million.

The performance of the PES is always under close scrutiny. Such scrutiny can be regular or ad hoc, by the public or by the Government itself. All these serve as monitoring mechanisms for the effective operation of the Hong Kong PES.

Regular monitoring

There are a number of standing mechanisms to keep track of the performances of the PES. Some of these monitoring come from inside the Government and some from outside. On internal monitoring, each job centre reports at monthly intervals the number of job-seekers and vacancies registered, referrals made and placements achieved. A new measure introduced in 1999 is the empowerment of managers in job centres in making operational decisions best suited to local circumstances. At the same time, there is increased transparency and accountability. A monthly league table of the performance of all job centres is released to all job centres for reference. The results are also reviewed at the monthly management meeting. A more in-depth review is conducted at 6-month intervals, covering improvements achieved by each office during the period, with reference to their past performance and with reference to other offices. The Labour Department, has to submit bi-weekly performance statistics to the Education and Manpower Bureau. Through these performance statistics, the Education and Manpower Bureau could monitor the performance of the PES and give policy directives wherever appropriate. The Labour Department is also accountable to the Education and Manpower Bureau for its own performance, including those of the PES. If the PES fails in meeting its expected target, it is liable to explain to its policy bureau the reasons behind and measures to be taken for eradicating the shortfall. This mode of monitoring from within the Government is management oriented. It is an initiative on the part of the central government to ensure that the resources allocated to a programme have been properly made use of. And where performance falls short of expectation, the mechanism will be able to alert the responsible policy bureau on a regular basis so that corrections can be made.

Apart from monitoring from within the Government, external checks are also in place. All government agencies are required to set out their annual budget estimates and their performance targets. These budget estimates and proposed performance indicators are circulated to members of the legislature. Before the beginning of each financial year, members of the Hong Kong SAR Legislative Council would raise questions they have in relation to the spending of the Government. They can also query government agencies on their performance in the past year, or the proposed performance indicators in the coming year. The purpose of this process is to hold government agencies accountable for the way they spend public monies and to link up performance with spending. This yearly exercise enables legislative members to make use of this mechanism to raise questions concerning the performance of government departments. Therefore government agencies are usually very cautious in ensuring that they can keep up with their committed performance targets. The PES, likewise, has to undergo the same scrutiny process by the legislature. The major performance indicators it lays down are mainly that of number of job-seekers and vacancies registered, number of placements, and number of young persons participating in careers activities. These indicators have formed important yardsticks for measuring the effectiveness of the PES.

Other than quantitative monitoring, there is also a machinery to keep track of the service quality of the government agencies. As mentioned in paragraph 22, it is the policy of the Hong Kong SAR Government to require government agencies to lay down their own performance pledges and make them known to the public, so that the public can directly monitor the service quality of these agencies. The Labour Department publishes each year a list of results it has been able to achieve in the previous year.

Another new measure introduced by the Labour Department in 1999 is the focus group meetings with its major clients. The first meeting was held on 2 June 1999 with representatives from 20 Government departments who are major users of the PES. Together, they generated a total of around 9.000 placements in 1998. The PES introduced to them the new management philosophy as well as the new services to end-users. The end users pointed out what their major concerns were and what they expected from the PES. Innovative ideas were generated during the discussion. This led to clearer and better interface between recruiters and the PES. The meeting was so fruitful that clients have requested for a quarterly meeting instead of the proposed 6-monthly meetings. Similar focus group meetings will be held with major users in leading employment sectors such as retail, restaurants, hotels and manufacturing sectors to solicit users feedback as a means to further improve the PES. Focus group discussions will also be held with major trade unions to solicit their views from the point of view of job-seekers.

There is also a dedicated mechanism designed specifically for monitoring the performance of the PES. The Committee on Employment Services of the Labour Advisory Board is set up for advising the Labour Department on matters relating to employment services in Hong Kong in general, and in particular the work of the Local Employment Services, the Careers Advisory Service and the Selective Placement Division of the Labour Department. Members of the Committee on Employment Services of the Labour Advisory Board are appointed by the Commissioner for Labour. Each year, the PES submits to this Committee reports on its work and listens to view of its members on how PES could be further improved.

Apart from regular monitoring, there are also ad hoc monitoring on the activities of the Government. In Hong Kong the Legislative Council (LegCo) could raise questions or make proposals to the Government on various items. In addressing LegCo members' concerns, policy bureaux and departments have to provide the relevant facts or give official responses to questions raised or proposals submitted. Experiences show that it is almost the norm for the legislature to question the government on the effectiveness of the PES whenever unemployment rate escalates. In such events, the PES has to ensure that its performance can stand to public scrutiny.

All the above mentioned mechanisms knit together to hold the PES accountable for its own performance, whether to the public, to the legislature, or to the central government. Some of these monitoring mechanisms are more effective in one way while some are more effective in another way. However, they serve to make the PES administrators more alert in delivering its service, and be prepared at all times to be accountable for their own performance.

Results achieved by the Job Matching Programme

Statistical performance of the Job Matching Programme has indicated that the JMP is a successful programme in helping those less competitive to find jobs. Of the job-seekers registered under the programme as at end of 1995, about two-thirds were females. There were also about two-thirds having received education of lower secondary or below. Each of the age groups of 30-39 and 40-49 accounted for more than 40% of all registrants. Slightly over half of them came from the manufacturing sector.

This profile of JMP registrants has undergone some gradual changes in the following years. Among the some 15.599 JMP registrants of 1998, the age groups of 30-39 and 40-19 together formed a total of 52% of the total registrants. Comparing with the 86% of job-seekers aged between 30 and 49 registered in 1995, job-seekers now seeking assistance from the JMP are younger. The proportion of registrants from the manufacturing sector also has reduced from 49% in 1995 to 22% in 1998, reflecting that workers affected by economic restructuring now are no longer confined to those in the manufacturing industries, but have extended to those in the service industries. The education level of job-seekers has also registered an upward movement. In 1998 slightly more than 59% of the JMP registrants have upper secondary or above education. Comparing with the figures of 1995 when the number of registrants having received the same level of education was only 36%, this subtle change has indicated that the JMP registrants now are more diversified. More job-seekers who have experienced difficulty in finding employment on their own accord would now think of using this dedicated service. This trend should not be taken with much surprise as a new form of economic restructuring has been recently taking place. During this process of restructuring, workers having only single or lower skills are displaced by those with multi- and higher skill levels. This new restructuring sweeps through the whole economy. Workers affected are hence not only confined to displaced factory workers but also extends to the younger group, the better educated, and even those having sophisticated experiences in a certain field. Hence the JMP is facing even greater challenges in the years ahead because of the wide range of unemployed job-seekers, requiring special placement assistance.

In the first year of introduction of this new programme, among the some 5.500 job-seekers registered with the JMP, a total of 3.870 job offers were obtained for them, representing a success rate of 70%. At the same time, it was noted that a total of 1.261 registrants out of the total of 5.500 were able to find jobs on their own upon receiving counselling by the placement officers.

Of the placements obtained by JMP placement officers, 35% of the registrants are placed in clerical and related jobs while 30% into sales/service work. As regards the time lag between registration and placement, about 80% of the placements were achieved within the first month of registration and another 16% were secured within the second and third months.

As regards the level of retention, according to a snapshot survey of the placed registrants in 1995, it was found that 72% of them had remained in the same employment for 3 months or more. This reflects that apart from a high success rate, the effort of JMP on placing the unemployed into jobs is also highly sustainable.

The good results of the JMP continued into 1998. Since the inception of the JMP and up to end of 1998, the JMP has registered a total of 36.810 unemployed job-seekers. A total of 141.480 job referrals had been made for them. As a result, 22.512 job offers were obtained, representing a success rate of 61%. In addition, 7.314 registrants had managed to find job on their own accord after receiving counselling.