Adam Au

Opinion | How Carrie Lam’s policy address offers Hong Kong’s youth real hope

The chief executive’s Greater Bay Area youth employment scheme not only opens the door to new opportunities when traditional pathways in Hong Kong are stagnating, but will also add impetus to the city’s digital transformation

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Employees work at a start-up company at the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau youth innovation and entrepreneurial base in Shenzhen on August 12. A new scheme announced by the Hong Kong government could draw more local youth to cities in the Greater Bay Area. Photo: Xinhua

Adam Au

Published: 9:45am, 4 Dec 2020Updated: 10:23am, 4 Dec 2020

In her policy address, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced the start of a new youth employment scheme that encourages companies to recruit local graduates to work in the Greater Bay Area, a hotbed of innovation and technology.

Some critics have argued that the initiative fails to tackle the gaping social divides that have made headlines in the past 18 months. Such criticism misses the mark. Lam’s initiative extends an olive branch to a beleaguered community that could evolve into a more open and honest dialogue down the line.

By offering the youth a glimpse of real hope, the initiative opens the door to new possibilities, especially as our economy pivots to adopting technology on a larger scale.

The pre-pandemic world once promised predictable rewards to members of the younger generation if they worked hard and followed in their predecessors’ career footprints. The surfeit of disruptions today – a sustained decline in retail sales and inbound tourism figures, for example – means the future is more uncertain than ever.

The youth unemployment rate hit an all-time high of over 12 per cent in September. How we respond to the ravages of this year will ripple into the years ahead.

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