- Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for Residential Care Homes

Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for Residential Care Homes (the Special Scheme) Background and Objectives To address the shortage and increasing demand of care workers, and to assist the residential care homes (RCHs) sector in enhancing service quality, the government will launch the Special Scheme in June 2023 to allow RCHs for the elderly (RCHEs), RCHs for persons with disabilities (RCHDs) and scheduled nursing homes (NHs) to import care workers with flexibility and more streamlined procedures on the premise of safeguarding the employment priority for local workers. Eligibility for Application RCHEs issued with licences under the Residential Care Homes (Elderly Persons) Ordinance (Cap. 459), RCHDs issued with licences or certificates of exemption under the Residential Care Homes (Persons with Disabilities) Ordinance (Cap. 613), and NHs issued with letters of exemption under the Private Healthcare Facilities Ordinance (Cap. 633). Application & Enquiries (1) Special Scheme accepts RCHEs, RCHDs and NHs to submit applications for quotas within a specified application period of about two weeks once every quarter (i.e. in March, June, September and December). The actual dates of accepting application will be announced at appropriate time in the “What’s New” of SWD website before each quarter. (2) RCH operators who wish to obtain quotas for importation of care workers under the Special Scheme can submit applications online (the hyperlink of the E-form will be provided later) during the application period as specified by SWD, or download the application form in this webpage and submit the completed application form together with the required documents in person or by post, to Contract Management Section of SWD. The processing time is around 2 months. Please refer to the “Booklet on Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for Residential Care Homes” and “Points to Note” in the Application Form for details of the application procedures before making application. For enquiries, please contact our office. The details of the contact information are as follows: Address : Contract Management Section (Oi Kwan Road Office) Room 306, 3/F, Lady Trench Training Centre, 44 Oi Kwan Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong (Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., except public holidays) Telephone : 3468 3923 (Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., except public holidays) Fax : 3468 2002 Email : cmenq2@swd.gov.hk Forms and Documents of Special Scheme (for download) Documents/Forms Download Booklet on Special Scheme to Import Care Workers for Residential Care Homes  (Acrobat Document) (Chinese only)   (Acrobat Document)  (Text-only version) Application Form (with “Points to Note” and “Requirements on the Recruitment Advertisement of Local Care Worker(s)”)  (Acrobat Document)   Confirmation Form on Local Recruitment (Annex 1 to Application Form)  (Acrobat Document)   Information Form of Full-time Local Employees of Residential Care Home (Annex 2 to Application Form)  (Acrobat Document)   List of In-employ Imported Care Worker (Annex 3 to Application Form)  (Acrobat Document)   List of imported care workers (including replacement of imported care workers) not yet arrived in Hong Kong (Annex 4 to Application Form)  (Acrobat Document)   Other Information According to the statistics of Census and Statistics Department as at September 2022, the median monthly wage for care worker is HKD$14,500 (9 hours of normal working hours per day excluding meal break). Two online briefing sessions were held by Social Welfare Department for the residential care home sector on 18 and 19 May 2023 to explain the application procedures and the implementation of the Special Scheme. The briefing session Powerpoint can be downloaded [here].