On Wednesday’s Money Talk, Peter Lewis will be joined by Asian Fund Management Industry Consultant, Stewart Aldcroft, Pete Sweeney, Asia Editor at Reuters Breakingviews and RTHK’s International Economics Correspondent, Barry Wood.

You can read Peter’s detailed, daily 7am and midday financial news briefings on our Facebook page, where you can also comment, contribute, and ask him questions.
(Every weekday 8:00am-8:30am, except PHs. You can also email us at moneytalk@rthk.hk , or find us on twitter @MoneytalkRadio3) .

On Wednesday’s Backchat: we will look at civil servants’ pay rise and the case for a shorter work week, after a local company kicked off a trial four-and-a-half-day work week this summer.

The government proposed an across-the-board pay rise of 2.5 percent for all civil servants. It fell short of recommendations put forth by the Pay Trend Survey Committee, which had suggested a pay hike of up to 7.26 percent for senior staff, 4.55 percent and 2.04 percent for middle-ranking and junior workers.

Secretary for the Civil Service, Ingrid Yeung, said the decision was made after taking into account factors including the economy, cost of living, the government’s fiscal position, staff morale, pay trends in the private market and views from workers.

Meanwhile, Between July and September, New World Group is giving workers at several of its units half a Friday off, without cutting their pay.

On top of that, these employees can also work remotely for one day each week. In a statement, the company said these are part of its family-friendly measures, and it hopes they will improve their workers' well-being. 

So will this help boost employee motivation? Will it increase productivity? And will a shorter work week be a new trend in Hong Kong?

After 9:15am, we'll look at a new clinical trial by Sinovac Biotech, of its Omicron-specific inactivated vaccine.

Let us know what you think. You can leave a message on our Facebook page, Backchat on RTHK Radio 3, email us at backchat@rthk.hk or give us a call on 2338 8266.