July 25, 2005

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Why Can't HK Grads Get Jobs?

Today's Standard carries an article about how Hong Kong university graduates are unable to secure good jobs, even as Hong Kong's economic climate continues to improve. 40% of the 90,000 applicants are looking for single person-units from the public Housing Authority, as they cannot afford to move out of their families' apartments, some as small as 200 sq. ft.

The obvious subtext is this - the highest-paying local employers simply do not value local graduates, and prefer to hire foreigners or Hong Kongers that have gone abroad for their education. One can blame part of this on employers' mindsets, but obviously another problem is just that local universities are not putting out a high-enough quality product. It's not the professors - many of them are excellent, and are also among the highest-paid in the world. Airport Authority Chairman Victor Fung (of Li & Fung fame) was absolutely right in his speech last week that local universities need to become more competitive by seeking a far more diverse student body. By largely limiting enrollment to local students, the pool of academic talent entering Hong Kong's tertiary institutions is of course going to be limited. Columbia University in New York would be a far less prestigious institution if it largely only accepted New Yorkers.

The next step beyond that is to make it simple for foreign students studying here in Hong Kong to get work permits. Only then will the top-tier Hong Kong employers - its banks and consultancies - be willing to hire local grads. Some might say it makes the lot of the current crop of Hong Kong youth even more disadvantaged - but competition is always a good thing. Hong Kong has always been a city of immigrants - in fact the growth rate of new immigrants today is far lower than in previous ages - and to shut off the taps of new talent today would only hurt Hong Kong's future.

posted by HK Dave on 07.25.05 at 11:26 AM in the




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Local Grads can't get jobs?
Excerpt: Now substitute all the references to "Hong Kong" with "Singapore"...
Weblog: From a Singapore Angle
Tracked: July 25, 2005 02:57 PM


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