Hong Kong to focus on ‘retaining’ talent after recruitment drive, labour chief says
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong will focus on “retaining talent” after multiple admission schemes brought around 175,000 people to the city over the past two years, including two top snooker players and a former NBA star, the labour chief has said.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun also said on Monday that the government had no plans to expand a labour importation scheme for care workers and those in the construction and transportation sectors, despite forecasts that Hong Kong’s manpower shortage would widen.
Hong Kong introduced the Top Talent Pass Scheme (TTPS) in December 2022, aimed at attracting high earners after professionals left the city following the imposition of a national security law and years of strict Covid-19 curbs. The policy has since been expanded, while a retired investment visa scheme was revived.
In an interview with state-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po on Monday, Sun said authorities had received over 110,000 applications for the TTPS and approved around 88,000. Taking all talent admission schemes into consideration, around 175,000 people had arrived in Hong Kong since late 2022, he said.
Sun highlighted the arrivals of former NBA point guard Stephon Marbury and snooker world champions, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump, saying their decisions to move to the city “spoke volumes to Hong Kong’s attractiveness.”
Sun said Western news contained “unfair” reports about the city, and the sport stars’ moves would benefit Hong Kong’s image as an international city.
“Their words are better than a thousand words from us,” he told the newspaper in Cantonese.
He said the government would focus on retaining newcomers after a two-year recruitment drive. Early TTPS arrivals will soon face their first visa renewals as their initial stay of two years expires.
The minister said that whether the newcomers stayed in Hong Kong would be a matter of “natural selection,” as the city was only offering a “platform” for career development.
“As we select them, they also select us. It’s a fair game,” Sun said. “Hong Kong is not a cheap city… but it offers many opportunities. If they are capable and can adapt to the city, they will naturally stay here.”
“If they can not develop themselves [in Hong Kong], then we just break up peacefully,” he added.
Sun said authorities would try to hold on to talent by setting out clear visa renewal processes and providing information for leading a life in the city, such as those about children’s education.
Asked by the reporter about offering housing allowances to top talent to increase their chance of retention, Sun rejected the suggestion, citing local residents’ housing needs. Other international cities such as New York and London did not offer such perks to international talent, he added.
Non-local labour
Sun said authorities had been reviewing labour importation schemes but had no plans to expand them beyond the care work, construction, and transportation sectors.
A study published by the Labour and Welfare Bureau last month estimated a 50,000 manpower shortage currently in Hong Kong and projected the gap to widen to 180,000 by 2028.
Sun said an aging population and the gradual decline of the city’s labour force had contributed to the shortage of “frontline” workers, such as those working in the construction or service sectors.
The government will step up local training and increase supply, he said, adding that importing more labour would be a last resort.
“The overarching principle is that we will prioritise the employment of local workers,” he said, adding that current regulations only allowed for labour import after firms had failed to hire enough workers locally.
The government rolled out a “sector specific labour importation scheme” last year in a bid to tackle the city’s labour crunch. As of November this year, about 37,500 foreign workers had been approved to work in Hong Kong, according to official figures.
The impact of the scheme has been widely felt, with over 80 per cent of construction workers saying their jobs had been “affected” by it, according to a survey released by the Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union in October.
Sun said the new schemes had been effective in plugging worker shortages in low-skilled jobs such as waiters, junior chefs, sales, and security guards, adding that authorities would ensure non-local labour quotas would only be allotted to companies that experienced genuine difficulty hiring locally.
Scheme expanded
Chief Executive John Lee announced during his Policy Address in October that the TPPS would be further expanded, adding 13 mainland Chinese and overseas universities to the scheme’s qualification list.
Currently, graduates from 198 universities around the world are eligible for the scheme, among which 22 are in mainland China.
Separately, those earning more than HK$2.5 million annually would be eligible for an initial three-year visa, up from two years previously.
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