The Legislative Council on Wednesday approved a bill which lowers the working hour threshold of the continuous contract requirement under the Employment Ordinance.

The LegCo passed the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2025, which revises the weekly working hours threshold from 18 hours to 17 hours, making it easier for employees in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to meet the continuous contract requirement and enabling them to enjoy comprehensive employment benefits.

The bill also provides an alternative of using the aggregate working hours in a specified four-week period as a counting unit in which a week with less than 17 working hours will still be considered as continuous employment if the sum of the working hours of that week and those of the three preceeding weeks reaches 68 hours.

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The Hong Kong SAR government welcomed the bill’s passage.

"This amendment exercise lowers the working hours threshold of the ‘continuous contract’ requirement and introduces flexibility in the calculation of working hours, reducing the circumstances of disrupting the continuity of an employee's employment because the working hours of a week occasionally fall below the threshold,” said an HKSAR government spokesman.

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He said that, after the amendments, other provisions of the Employment Ordinance will continue to operate, and existing eligibility criteria for employees to enjoy various statutory benefits will remain unchanged.

Employees who have met the current “continuous contract” requirement will not be affected, the spokesman added.

The Employment (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 will be gazetted on June 27 and the revised "continuous contract" requirement will take effect from Jan 18, 2026 onwards.