Local employers can only apply for imported labour once every six months starting on Tuesday, the Labour Department announced as part of an attempt to safeguard employment priority for locals.

To ensure that employers would not replace locals with imported labour, it also launched an online complaints form on its webpage for the Enhanced Supplementary Labour Scheme for them to report violations.

Officers will carry out a special inspection campaign to check whether companies that have hired imported workers are in compliance with the government requirement on maintaining a 2:1 ratio between local and imported workers.

The government stipulates that employers applying to bring in imported workers must try and recruit locally first as part of its effort to give priority to locals.

Starting on Tuesday, the department will display the names of applicant companies when publishing job vacancies on its website.

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun told RTHK that the authorities wish to provide more information for local job applicants.

“Jobseekers are often not aware when recruitment drives are launched because employers want imported labour unless they call the companies one by one, which can be troublesome,” he said.

"So we want to make this information public."

Sun also said some employers have been applying to hire imported workers many times over six-month spans.

Filing such applications too frequently, he said, is not appropriate and employers should be more careful in their recruitment plans.