While ethnic minority job seekers said language barriers remain their biggest obstacle, some companies have improved their prospects by adding more English to training materials and lowering their Chinese language requirements. Various government departments and firms were recruiting staff at a job fair held on Sunday by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). One of them was a franchised bus company offering positions such as bus captains, technicians and customer service officers. Citybus said all Chinese guidelines have been translated into English to accommodate ethnic minority workers. It also said the requirement for bus captains now is basic communication in Cantonese, compared with reading and writing Chinese and speaking fluent Cantonese in the past. The firm has about 30 ethnic minority staff. "I think they are quite embedded in our whole population, our local bus captains are happy to work with them. All the people in the company, they know that the company is an inclusive employer," said Citybus general manager Roger Wong. Rojal, who's from Nepal and has been in Hong Kong for almost a decade, submitted an application with a bank. He said he found it hard to land a job here because of language barriers. "The employers are really looking for someone who actually can speak the language," he said. "I'm not exactly sure why that's the case, perhaps the clients want you to speak in Chinese or the documents could be in Chinese." Another job seeker, Bharvani, echoed the sentiment. "Even though I studied here, my reading and writing skills are not that great. So it (throws out) at least half or three-fourths of the job opportunities," said the ethnic Indian who was born and raised in Hong Kong. The head of the EOC, Linda Lam, said more should be done to create job opportunities for ethnic minorities. "In fact, there are many young ethnic minorities with qualifications, outstanding attitude, and are [highly-skilled], and they are suitable to work in various levels of an organisation," she said. "In the future, we will be organising other activities to continue our efforts, to promote the breaking down of stereotypes, to help the ethnic minorities to have more opportunities to participate in different levels in the workforce."
