Simon Leung has been without a full-time job since his contract ended in March 2024, after the Hong Kong government cut its budget for NGOs by 7 per cent.<\/p>\n
The social work event coordinator, who is in his late forties, now makes ends meet through gig jobs.<\/p>\n
With word spreading that the city\u2019s coming budget<\/a> will yield an early operating surplus, he wants Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po<\/a> to restore funding for non-governmental organisations so retrenched workers like him can be hired again.<\/p>\n \u201cThey should increase the budget back to the previous level,\u201d the civil engineering graduate from Queen\u2019s University in Canada told the South China Morning Post.<\/p>\n Like other Hongkongers, Leung hopes his sector will receive attention in next Wednesday\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n Yet, others question whether such relief measures ought to be weighed against plans for the longer-term future riddled with uncertainty. Even short-term measures, they argued, must be plugged into the big picture of the city\u2019s ambitions \u2013 to stay ahead as an international financial centre while ensuring a liveable, affordable home for its residents.<\/p>\n From deficit to sound fiscal health<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Simon Leung has been without a full-time job since his contract ended in March 2024, after the Hong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[162182,162177,162174,138,607,162178,219,162181,32357,4431,10296,162180,162179,13291,13295,111,139,162175,69,162176],"class_list":{"0":"post-293045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-anthony-lam-sai-ho","9":"tag-basic-law","10":"tag-billy-mak-sui-choi","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-deloitte-china","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-exchange-fund","16":"tag-financial-secretary-paul-chan-mo-po","17":"tag-hong-kong","18":"tag-hong-kong-monetary-authority","19":"tag-hong-kong-shue-yan-university","20":"tag-karina-wong","21":"tag-lau-siu-kai","22":"tag-lee-shu-kam","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-non-governmental-organisations","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-simon-leung"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}