The Leisure & Cultural Services Department has urged lifeguards to continue their duties and consider public interest when making requests.
The department made the plea today in response to the strike by the Hong Kong & Kowloon Life Guards' Union planned for June 26.
Department officers met with the union to discuss the lifeguards' concern on manpower, recruitment, service extension and the grade structure review.
They said 21 and 16 civil service lifeguard posts were created in 2015/16 and 2016/17, while more than 180 seasonal lifeguard quotas were added in the past five years.
The department will recruit more non-civil service seasonal lifeguards to strengthen manpower at beaches and swimming pools in 2016/17.
It has been employing eligible retired or soon-to-retire civil service lifeguards to strengthen manpower and will also study the feasibility of extending lifeguard contracts.
On the proposal to delink lifeguards from the artisan grade, the department said under existing policy a grade structure review will only be considered if there are proven and persistent recruitment and retention difficulties or fundamental changes in job nature.
As civil service lifeguards do not meet the criteria at present, there is no grounds for conducting a grade structure review now, it added.
