Evaluating the safety climate of ethnic minority construction workers in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong construction industry is facing a severe labour shortage due to an ageing workforce and a lack of new entrants, even at a time of construction boom. To improve this situation, ethnic minorities (EMs) have been attracted to join the construction industry. In many developed countries, however, some unofficial statistics show that EMs suffer higher fatality rates than their local counterparts. It is clear that the safety of ethnic minority (EM) construction workers requires more attention. The objectives of this study, therefore, were to evaluate the safety climate among EM construction workers in Hong Kong, to predict the impact of safety climate factors as they affect the likelihood of injury occurrences and to determine the relationships between safety climate and the safety performance of EM workers. A questionnaire survey was administrated to Pakistani and Nepalese construction workers in Hong Kong. The results revealed that the overall average safety climate score for both EM groups was not very high and that the Pakistani worker scores were higher than the Nepalese worker scores. EM frontline-workers scored less than EM supervisors and managers. Among seven safety climate factors, "Workers personal involvement in safety and health (F5)" was ranked highest and "Perception of safety rules and regulations (F4)", was ranked lowest. "Risk taking behaviour and perception of work risk (F3)" and "Workers personal involvement in safety and health (F5)" were identified as significant predictors of injury occurrence. Furthermore, the safety climate was significantly associated with the degree of safety participation and safety compliance. It was expected that the findings of the study would provide an insight into the level of safety climate among EM workers, enabling organizations and practitioners around the world to improve safe working among EM workers.