Hong Kong Joblessness Continues to Rise

Unemployment has climbed to 6% as Hong Kong struggles through recession, the government said in a report that offered a continued gloomy outlook for the near term. The rate for the three months ended in February is the highest since the government started keeping its current form of employment statistics in 1982. About 206,000 people were unemployed, compared with 202,700 in the three-month period that ended in January, when unemployment stood at 5.8%. Hong Kong’s joblessness had stood at 2.9% from December to February of 1998, according to the Census and Statistics Department.