ABSTRACT
The globalization of business and economic activities has affected Hong Kong giving rise to important changes in its labour market and with impacts on workers and labour organizations. This chapter provides an analysis of the impact of globalization in terms of the migration of business and labour and the effects on workers and trade unions in Hong Kong. It examines regulation in a system that is supposed to be deregulatory and the way in which labour importation has been affected by globalization of the Hong Kong economy and its businesses. The global trend of labour market deregulation has not made a salient and problematic impact in Hong Kong as in Western advanced economies. By default, Hong Kong coped with rapid growth and labour demands during the 1970s with a hidden reliance upon illegal immigrants from China. Deregulating guest worker employment has compromised the unregulated, basically free wage policy norm taken as a hallmark of Hong Kong's free enterprise ethos.
