HONG KONG, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chief Executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said Tuesday that the HKSAR government will try to ensure the safety of bus operation at both operational and macro levels.
Last week's fatal bus crash in the Sham Shui Po area highlights the need to ensure bus operation safety, as well as the need to tackle the broader issue of a shrinking workforce in Hong Kong, Lam told media before Tuesday's Executive Council meeting.
"It is a question of how we can ensure the bus operation is safe in Hong Kong, which requires also not only regulation on the part of government, but also full support and co-operation of the bus companies. But on a boarder scale, it also concerns an issue of labour supply," Lam said.
The HKSAR government will tackle this problem "both at the more macro level of labour supply and also at the operational level with the various bus companies," she said, adding that "we need to find pragmatic solutions to some of the problems we are facing."
The recently-published Hong Kong population projections showed that the total labor force in Hong Kong may reach a plateau between 2019 and 2022 and then begin to decrease.
Lam noted that some trades in Hong Kong, such as elderly care and construction, are already facing a labor shortage.
Three people were killed and 27 others injured when a bus mounted a pavement at a junction in the Sham Shui Po district on Friday evening.
The accident occurred at around 6:30 p.m. local time. When a taxi in front braked, the double-decker bus hit the rear of the taxi, then swerved left and mounted the pavement, smashing through railings and hitting a building's canopy.
