Among the graduates recruited by industry and commerce, the monthly salaries of HKU graduates working in the insurance and real estate industries increased by 8% and 7.1% respectively to MOP27,154 and MOP23,852 respectively. "Caijing" reporter Jiao Jian/photo
In the relevant data published so far, the unemployment rate of all major universities in Hong Kong is at a low level, with a relatively high rate of 2.6% and a relatively low rate of only 0.9%
"Caijing" special Hong Kong reporter Jiao Jian
Editor|Su Qi
After the University of Hong Kong released the latest relevant employment data on August 2, the basic employment situation of graduates of major universities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China in 2023 has been largely "revealed".
As an international education hub with many of the world's top 100 universities, the employment situation of graduates from local aided universities (similar to public universities in the mainland) has attracted much attention. In addition to the usual data such as employment rate, further study rate and salary level, there are also some local characteristics that attract attention, as well as the level of employment in Hong Kong. Employed include full-time, part-time, self-employed and casual workers.
Take the latest graduate employment data released by the University of Hong Kong as an example: after the employment rate of its bachelor's degree graduates reached 98.8% in 2023, the university has achieved full employment for 18 consecutive years. The average monthly salary of graduates also increased by 3.4% to a new high of HK$31,982. In terms of median, it remained at the level of 25,000 yuan. With medicine and dentistry excluded, the average monthly salary of HKU graduates will change from $31,982 to $28,017.
A total of 3,065 HKU graduates participated in the survey, with a response rate of over 85%. Among them, the proportion of employed graduates was 73.7%, a slight decrease of 0.6% year-on-year, the number of those who continued their studies increased by 0.5 percentage points to 22.6%, and the number of unemployed was only 0.9%, almost all of them were employed. Among the employment group, 97.1% were offered their first job by the end of 2023.
The average monthly salary of Hong Kong university graduates is not the highest among local universities. Among the major government-funded universities such as the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Education University of Hong Kong, except for the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which has no publicly available data, the highest average monthly salary is currently for graduates of the education university's teacher education program, with an increase of 3.6% in 2023 to 34,773 yuan (compared with the average monthly salary of graduates of other courses at the university, which is 21,109 yuan).
In the relevant data published so far, the unemployment rate of all major universities in Hong Kong is at a relatively low level, with a relatively high rate of 2.6% of the University of Hong Kong Chinese and a relatively low rate of 0.9% of the University of Hong Kong.
Because it is related to the level of local industrial development, the distribution of employment fields is also one of the numbers that has attracted the attention of local people. In the case of the University of Hong Kong, the most important employment industry for its graduates is still industry and commerce. Among the graduates recruited by the industry and commerce, HKU graduates who are engaged in the insurance and real estate industries have the largest salary increases of 8% and 7.1% respectively at $27,154 and $23,852 respectively.
The proportion of students engaged in social and personal services increased to 23.3 per cent from 21.3 per cent last year. Participation in government also increased from 12.5 per cent to 14.4 per cent, both of which are the fastest growing sectors. However, according to the employment situation of graduates of full-time courses funded by the local UGC (data updated to August 2023), the proportion of graduates joining the government, public sector and public utilities among other major universities is also lower than that of industry and commerce.
It is worth mentioning that from September 2024, the ceiling for non-local undergraduate students in Hong Kong's UGC-funded universities will be increased from 20% to 40%. On top of this, Hong Kong is also gradually relaxing the restrictions on part-time work for full-time non-local postgraduate students studying in Hong Kong.
However, some local human resources industry professionals also analyzed to the "Caijing" reporter that with the increasing pressure on local economic growth, the proportion of non-local undergraduates who choose to work or continue their studies in Hong Kong after graduation will also have certain new changes. How to enable these talents to contribute to the economic and social development of Hong Kong is an aspect worth considering. In addition, as Hong Kong has accelerated the development of the secondary industry in the past two years, it is also worth paying attention to how to provide more outstanding graduates from the industrial sector.
Overall, there is a shortage of talent in Hong Kong's industrial development fields in areas such as engineering, product design, computer technology and artificial intelligence. This is not only related to the continuous increase in local market demand, but more importantly, the number of talents cultivated by universities is still insufficient.
UBTECH (09880. HK) is currently recruiting talents in related industries in Hong Kong. The company's chief financial officer, Zhang Ju, pointed out at a recent forum hosted by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Hong Kong's financial and technology industry ecology still needs to be fine-tuned. For example, one of the main reasons why tech talent is hard to find is that "they prefer to work in finance and professional services." Even if it can be found, it is much more expensive than in Shenzhen."
"The SAR government can consider changing its thinking, in addition to directly subsidizing the settlement and R&D of technology enterprises, it can also indirectly subsidize enterprises to recruit local talents. Only by truly cultivating talents can related industries have better development. Zhang Ju pointed out to the "Caijing" reporter.
Editor-in-charge|Zhang Yufei