Hong Kong's Covid Zero Policy Causes Domestic Worker Shortage

Hong Kong is facing a domestic worker shortage in its push for Covid Zero. Known as “‘helpers” to locals, these groups of mostly Filipina and Indonesian women are the silent core of Hong Kong’s $345 billion economy, with 400,000 providing live-in child care, cooking and cleaning to more than 10% of households before the Covid-19 pandemic. With the government pushing on with its Covid Zero ambitions, that number has dwindled to 350,000 and is leading residents to reckon with a worsening labor crunch.

For those who remain — about 10% of Hong Kong’s entire labor force — it’s a chance to demand better pay and conditions for a job that sees them work as many as 16 hours a day, six days a week, for a minimum wage of HK$4,630 ($590) per month.

But they face a system historically stacked against them. They risk drawing scrutiny from authorities for ending two-year job contracts early, the law dictates they reside with their bosses, and they’re denied permanent residency no matter how long they live in Hong Kong. The workers must also contend with employers who have grown used to a steady supply of low-wage labor under a program that’s brought in foreign domestic workers since the early 1970s.

“Many are too afraid to ask for more money because the employers still have power over domestic workers,” said Dolores Balladares, a domestic worker and spokeswoman for Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, an advocacy group. “The fear of losing jobs is inevitable. Asking for a wage increase can be a fuel for contract termination.”

At the heart of the helper shortage is a Hong Kong system straining under the pressure of an omicron outbreak and some of the harshest containment measures in the world. The city currently bans flights from eight countries, including the Philippines, where the majority of helpers come from.

Even for those who can make it to Hong Kong, there’s a dearth of rooms available to serve the mandatory 21-day quarantine.

The government has designated a total of 11,500 quarantine hotel rooms for incoming passengers, but approved just 2,138 rooms rooms for helpers after ending a program that allowed them to stay at the main Penny’s Bay quarantine center. While that will rise by 150 from Feb. 1, it’s “simply not enough,” said Raly Tejada, the Philippines’ Consul General in Hong Kong, who has lobbied for more. A further increase would easily resolve the labor crisis, he said.

The Labor Department said in a statement to Bloomberg News that it must vigilantly uphold the policy of preventing imported virus cases and the admission of foreign domestic helpers into Hong Kong should be done in a gradual and orderly manner. The government will consider the global and local coronavirus situation as it weighs providing more designated quarantine facilities, it said.

The constantly changing system has left some like Mimi Rios Ysulat, who worked in the city as a helper for a decade, stuck overseas without a job.

She went back to the Philippines early last year after her husband died of cancer in March. Ysulat was due to return to Hong Kong the following month, but the city enacted a flight ban and then her entry visa expired in June. She pleaded with her employers to renew it, but a new visa didn’t arrive until mid-October, by which point her bosses had terminated her contract.

It was the second time she’d been caught by restrictions, after being blocked from returning in early 2020 before eventually making her way to Hong Kong via Singapore. To return again, she’ll need to use an employment agency.

“I can’t find work here and I have to take care of three kids,” she said from Quezon City. “But if I apply to go to Hong Kong again, I’d have to pay almost HK$10,000 to the agency. Where can I find the money?”

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