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Opinion | Amid Hong Kong’s graduate job gloom, Greater Bay Area offers hope
- Hong Kong’s small market and an unbalanced and narrow economic structure offer limited choices for fresh graduates to pursue their dreams
- Opportunities are unfolding across the border, as the likes of Shenzhen roll out measures to attract young people from Hong Kong and Macau
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Figures released this month show that 2.9 per cent of last year’s graduates from Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities are unemployed, the highest rate in 11 years.
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A poignant statistic is the 5.7 per cent jobless rate among graduates of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where I serve on the council. This rate is nearly double the average, and truly concerning.
Back in 2019, CUHK was the site of the most violent protests seen on a university campus in Hong Kong. This memory, as well as the pro-democracy activities witnessed on campus from time to time, might have resulted in employers’ hesitation in hiring CUHK graduates.
Yet I hope our local employers can be fair and open-minded, because most CUHK graduates are diligent, enterprising, intelligent and law-abiding.
Hong Kong’s university graduates are finding it harder to get a job these days. An oversupply of graduates means more competition for employment.
The impact of the year-long social unrest in Hong Kong, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic, has also lowered the desire of companies to hire more staff. Besides, some firms prefer to employ university graduates with solid work experience, but few of our students manage that before graduation.
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