Why are mainland Chinese professionals dominating Hong Kong’s global hunt for talent?
- Mainlanders accounted for two-thirds of 51,032 newly approved applicants under talent schemes over an 11-month period
- Business chambers and others hope talent from more countries will arrive to work in critical sectors
Harvey Kong
Published: 9:00am, 18 Jun, 2023
Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen
Mainland Chinese jobseekers made their presence felt when headhunter Briant Neo Wen-xi was looking to fill positions for his Hong Kong-based clients.
Neo helped to place 20 suitably qualified mainland workers between March and this month, marking the highest number of mainlanders he had recruited in the past five years.
They took up jobs in technology, healthcare, life sciences, banking, financial services and insurance.
With more than 12 years’ experience in the recruitment industry, Neo, the chief executive officer of Kairos Global Search, said the number of mainlanders being hired for his Hong Kong clients had risen significantly compared with the period before the
Covid-19 pandemic.
He estimated that only about a fifth of the talent every year he recruited between 2016 and 2019 was from the mainland. Since 2020, their proportion has swollen to about half and he expects the trend to continue.
“More Hong Kong-based companies recognise the need to leverage the skills and knowledge of mainland candidates to stay competitive in an evolving business landscape,” he said.
As Hong Kong emerges from three years of Covid-19 and some of the
harshest pandemic restrictions in the world, the battered economy needs an injection of global talent to help it bounce back as an international financial centre.
So far, however, mainland workers have outnumbered people from the rest of the world arriving in the city for jobs in key sectors, including financial services, engineering and construction and higher education.
The city has seven key talent schemes, with mainlanders eligible for five. According to immigration department data, more mainlanders have been applying to work in Hong Kong under these programmes and getting cleared to come.
Mainland Chinese professionals accounted for 33,976 approved work visas issued under various talent schemes over an 11-month period. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Of the total 51,032 new approvals under the various talent schemes over an 11-month period to February this year, two in three successful applicants were from the mainland.
They accounted for 33,976 approved work visas, with 17,056 granted to non-mainlanders, including applicants from Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the United States, India and France.
After Chief Executive
John Lee Ka-chiu revealed last October that about 140,000 people had left Hong Kong over the previous two years, city authorities launched several measures aimed at wooing people from around the world.
Under the Top Talent Pass Scheme, successful candidates are offered a two-year visa. Eligible workers include those who earned no less than HK$2.5 million (US$319, 113) over the past 12 months and graduates of the world’s top 100 universities who have worked for three of the past five years, with no limit on either group.
Graduates from the world’s top 100 universities in the past five years with less than three years of experience may also apply, but their numbers are capped at 10,000 annually.
As of February, 8,325 workers out of 8,797 approved under this new scheme came from the mainland, with only several dozens from other countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and Singapore.
The trend is a sharp contrast with the situation in the 2018-19 financial year ending March 31, before the city was hit by months of social unrest and the pandemic.
Over that period, the 24,128 mainlanders recently approved under talent schemes were outnumbered by 42,868 from other countries.
Some foreign business chambers have warned that Hong Kong needs to draw upon a diverse pool of talent instead of overly relying on mainland workers, but others who spoke to the Post have said the trend does not worry them.
Basil Hwang, vice-chairman of the Singapore Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said overseas talent was a “fundamental” aspect of Hong Kong as an international city and these individuals provided a way for the city to hedge against
geopolitical risks as it created value for the rest of the world.
Hong Kong has unveiled several talent schemes to combat the recent labour shortage. Photo: Jelly Tse
The recent trend of mainlanders outnumbering talent from elsewhere was of concern, he said, as it raised questions of whether the city was simply attracting a small number of global applicants or if there was a disproportionate preference for approving mainland applicants.
David Graham, executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said it was not surprising that more mainlanders applied to come to the city between last year and February this year, when Hong Kong
lifted its pandemic restrictions.
He said there was a negative sentiment overseas about Hong Kong, one of the last places globally to reopen.
“But we may see a change in the applications as we move through 2023 and into 2024, and have more international visits from senior business leaders,” he said.
He added that as a connector between East and West, Hong Kong needed to bring in international talent alongside local and mainland workers.
“This blend of talent has been a distinguishing feature of Hong Kong and one of its attractions,” he said.
Graham said he believed the city remained attractive to British talent, with its infrastructure, low tax regime, regulatory framework, cultural scene and easy access to nature.
Revealing that the chamber had begun seeing more interest and enquiries from British companies hoping to come to the city, he said: “Anecdotally, we are seeing some talent coming back to Hong Kong from among our members, but we expect to have a clearer idea at the end of the year or into 2024.”
George Leung Siu-kay, CEO of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, said the sharp increase in mainland talent heading to the city reflected rising education levels there.
“Hong Kong still has a good diversity of talented professionals from around the world, and this mix is largely determined by supply and demand of market forces,” he said.
But he added that as an international business hub, the city needed well-qualified people from around the world to work for companies targeting different markets and provide expertise and experience unavailable locally.
Some foreigners start arriving
Among those unsurprised by the trend of mainlanders arriving in Hong Kong was Armstrong Lee Hon-cheung, managing director of executive search firm Worldwide Consulting Group.
“Firstly, Hong Kong has a similar culture to the mainland,” he said. “Secondly, the mainland is very close to Hong Kong, making it easy for mainlanders to acclimatise to Hong Kong.”
Besides, he added, Hong Kong’s development was closely aligned to that of the mainland and as more Chinese companies moved to the city, they hired mainlanders with experience.
He thought that a mix of housing perks and tax rebates would bring back global talent to Hong Kong, but added that ultimately, employers played a part in deciding whether these individuals remained in the city.
“When you are employed in a job, if you do it well, have good promotion prospects and your salary is good, you will stay even if the environment in Hong Kong does not change,” he said. “This is because you already came to the city and have got used to its policies, life and infrastructure.”
Lingnan University human resources scholar Frankie Lam King-sun agreed that Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre would continue to draw talent.
Both said the city’s tough pandemic social-distancing and travel restrictions were the main reason foreigners left over the past three years.
To bring them back, Lam said the authorities had to work harder to push the message that Hong Kong had returned to normality after the pandemic, and provide them tax breaks or education subsidies for their children.
Lee Quane, regional director for Asia at management consultancy firm ECA International, pointed out that the pandemic had hurt the
economy so badly that there were fewer jobs currently for international talent.
Changes in the city’s political environment in recent years would also have put off overseas talent who cared about freedom of speech and democracy, he said.
In the wake of months of anti-government protests in 2019, Beijing imposed the
national security law in 2020, banning acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. That was followed by an overhaul of the electoral system to ensure that only “patriots” run the city.
Participants in a Greater Bay Area talent programme arrive in Hong Kong in April. Photo: Jelly Tse
Accompanying the changes were the closure of several independent media outlets, the disbandment of civil society groups, and the arrests of many political activists.
“As Hong Kong changes and moves away from what it was like five years ago towards a more politically restrained environment, that’s also going to deter international talent from staying in Hong Kong,” Quane said, adding that negative perceptions of the city’s political changes had to be addressed.
To attract global talent, he suggested promoting the city’s advantages compared with other locations, such as the relative ease for dependants of expatriates to find work, and addressing the high cost of living.
Lawmaker Johnny Ng Kit-chong, an entrepreneur who has incubated biotech and fintech start-ups, conceded that some foreign talent had been concerned about the political environment, but believed they were a minority and most were unhappy about the pandemic restrictions.
“When it comes to the political situation, we should just give everyone time to see the situation for themselves,” he said. “We need to prove that after the reform of the election system, the government’s efficiency has really increased, the things that it has done have actually improved the lives of residents.”
While the number of foreigners has yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, Hong Kong has seen some arriving in recent years.
In the 2020-21 financial year, the latest with complete data, financial services, commerce and trade, academic research and education were the top three industries with approved applicants under the General Employment Policy – the main scheme admitting overseas talent. All saw more than 2,000 approvals.
Of the 13,526 foreigners who arrived under the scheme, 5,261 had jobs paying between HK$20,000 and HK$39,999 
a month, 4,065 earned between HK$40,000 and HK$79,999,
while 2,691 earned HK$80,000 or more, according to the immigration department data.
Among those who decided to take a chance on Hong Kong was Felicia Teh, 45, a senior human resources professional at a multinational company.
She moved from 
Malaysia to Hong Kong last September to take a job she described as a step up in her career that came with a promotion and pay rise.
“I’ve been here nine months and I would confidently and without reservation say that Hong Kong offers unparalleled experiences both in the social and professional setting … this is a rare find globally,” she said. “I’m so delighted to be able to experience nature, culture and so many dining options.”
Teh, whose husband was also in Hong Kong, said they planned to stay for “the mid-to long-term” and was optimistic the city would bounce back.
“I think Hong Kong will continue to attract new international talent to its shores. Many have left, but many new ones, perhaps better ones,
will come,” she said.
When Hong Kong software start-up SeekFlow began recruiting online and took part in career events at
universities in the city this year, it noticed more interest from mainland talent.
The six mainlanders hired for its local research and development team now make up almost a tenth of the Hong Kong office’s team of more than 70.
“When we do career talks or join career fairs at the city’s eight publicly funded universities, we’ve also met quite a number of mainland candidates,” said the company’s chief of staff, Xenia Chu.
“Having fewer people to select from is something we really worry about. Having more, no matter what their nationality, is a good thing.”
Harvey Kong
Harvey joined the Post in 2021. He graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a double major in Journalism and Politics and Public Administration. Prior to joining the Post, he was a freelance multimedia journalist, stringing with news outlets such as the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and others.
