A family business story

Ms Chan (no first name was given) is an accountant from Wai Leng Garment Factory Limited who has been working there for more than 10 years. She is a younger sister of the owner of the factory. Actually, there are only eight staff members in the factory office, four of them are relatives. This kind of family style factory relies more on "trust" rather than "professional competence".

Chan also added that especially the new generation with high education level will not choose this field as their career.

In a family-run business the management is a common problem as it is not under a well-coordinated systematic control, this leads to a negative impact on its service quality due to the lack of human resources to keep everything under quality control. During the current booming economy, SMEs which are plagued by a labor shortage cannot share the same benefits as large enterprises since they lack both human and managerial resources to meet a large demand for quality services.

With various pressing competition from large enterprises, many SMEs were unable to survive and closed their business suddenly.

"In nowadays society the garment industry seems to be out of importance and disappears quickly," said Chan.

As it was pointed out by the Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Macau Chamber of Commerce, building a harmonious society is the most essential factor in development. It is the responsibility of the Macau government to take action to establish a stable relation between the labor force and employers, said Vong.

"Nowadays it is difficult to maintain a business," Mr. Leong, the owner of Weng Kei snack shop, said. "We cannot earn much, just earn a living." He also claimed that if the government still doesn't introduce some rules to protect local SMEs, they may close their business very soon. "I can do nothing at this time; my other branch will be closed next month because we cannot employ any workers," Leong added.

A survey of graduating students in Macau

According to the opinion of Tina Lai , who is a fourth year student of FBS in University of Macau, "The promotion opportunity" is her first consideration in finding a job. Therefore, SMEs may not be her "first choice".

We have interviewed 87 graduating students of the university to analyze the factors of young people choosing their careers. There are almost half of them (42%) who will look for "Promotion Opportunity" as their main consideration in searching for a job. About 36% think the "salary" is most important while 22% of them choose "personal interests".

The findings show that SMEs are much disadvantaged in attracting university graduates as most of them prefer to work in big companies which can provide promotion opportunities and higher salaries. Without the new blood of young and educated labor force, SMEs would have limited chance of growth and development in the face of international corporations in the casino industry.

A survey of citizens' opinion on the SMEs protection

According to the survey, about 64% of the respondents think that financial support is the most efficient measure for the government to protect SMEs. About 25% consider the establishment of a government agency to fund SME development as the most important while the remaining 11% believe the Macau government should introduce laws to safeguard the interests of SMEs.