| Year | 1981 | 1986 | 1991 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 |
| No. | 12489 | 17492 | 27053 | 31625 | 32395 | 33571 | 33944 | 39072 |
| Year | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | |
| No. | 49951 | 54295 | 60218 | 60282 | 58844 | 59549 | 59960 |
Operational Definitions
The number of employees in welfare institution and employees in other social and related community services extracted from the Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics.
Footnote
As from March 1991, the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification (HSIC) is adopted for the classification of economic activities in place of ISIC. Figures from 1st quarter 1991 onwards are therefore available in HSIC and are not strictly comparable to those in the past series which are in ISIC. All figures refer to the position as at end of year.Based on Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification Version 2.0 (HSIC V2.0) by the C&SD. The SEV has been enhanced to adopt the HSIC V2.0 to replace the HSIC Version 1.1 in compiling the statistics on the number of establishments, persons engaged and vacancies starting from 2009. Hence, all the statistics contained in this report are in HSIC V2.0.
