Hong Kong will see its shortage of workers skyrocket to nearly 118,000 in 2022, the latest government projection shows.

That's up from its forecast two years ago of a shortage of 14,000 workers by 2018.

And the latest figure is a conservative assumption. If, instead of growing by 4 per cent a year, the economy expands by 5 per cent a year, the shortage could be almost 178,000, the Labour and Welfare Bureau says in a paper to the Legislative Council's manpower panel.

Its figures also show a big mismatch between the job skills required and people's levels of education.

Writes Phila Siu for South China Morning Post.

Read the full article here.


Expert commentary by Steve Corry, British Council Hong Kong

This projection may increase the strength of calls for the government to change its education policy. In recent years the government has facilitated large growth in sub-degree places (largely through incentives to the self-funded sector), while maintaining a policy of limited provision of publicly funded degree places. Each year there are calls from various sectors of society to increase the number of degree places, and this data presents a reason for doing so. At this point however there is still no sign that the government will do so.

Another potential implication of this projection is for sub-degree holders (in over-supply) to upgrade their qualifications by means of a top-up degree, most of which are provided by UK institutions as TNE programmes.

While postgraduates will be in over-supply, the very competitive culture in Hong Kong means that it is unlikely that less people will decide to take these courses. If anything, more working professionals will upgrade to postgraduate qualifications by taking part time courses in order to keep up with labour market competition.


Should you have any queries about the Hong Kong market, and prospects for student recruitment or institution partnerships, please contact Steve Corry, Regional Business Development Manager at steven.corry@britishcouncil.org.hk.