Youth I.D.E.A.S. 06
Society and Livelihood
Attracting Talents to Hong Kong: Impact and Opportunities
22 December, 2015
With the transformation of Hong Kong into a knowledge-based economy, the demand for talent has increased. In addition to this, the challenges posed by an ageing population and declining fertility rate are further exacerbating the ardent demand for qualified and skilled specialists.
The government of Hong Kong has implemented admission schemes through which professionals and entrepreneurs can attract talented people to work in Hong Kong. According to the Immigration Department’s statistics, 51,827 non-local talented people were approved to work in Hong Kong under these admission schemes in 2014. The average annual growth rate of these admission schemes has also risen by 8.3% in the past 10 years.
“Talent” here refers to a person who possesses the specialist skills, knowledge or experience to meet Hong Kong’s needs and enhance its global competitiveness. This means that talent is not limited to having professional qualifications, a high level of education or earning a relatively high income.
Given the externally oriented and open nature of Hong Kong’s economy, talent attraction helps to both boost the country’s competitiveness and drive sustainable economic growth and employment. However, there are some social issues involved with importing talent, including strains on resources, threats to job prospects and cultural conflict. This study is designed to examine these aspects.
This study is based on poll interviews with young people across Hong Kong, as well as on individual interviews with both local and imported talents. It aims to create an in-depth understanding of these people’s attitudes and viewpoints regarding talent attraction. Experts and scholars in this area were also interviewed, in order to analyse the opportunities created by importing talent and the impact it has on local youth.
Based on these interviews, this report provides suggestions regarding three aspects of the talent attraction: increasing training to help local youth to become competitive, enhancing measures on admission schemes in order to increase Hong Kong’s competitiveness and attract talent, and promoting harmonious contact between local and imported talents, in order to consolidate the virtue of mutual respect.
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