Letters | Why Hong Kong must take emigration figures seriously

Hong Kong has bid farewell to around 140,000 of its residents since the outbreak of Covid-19. Canada has always been Hongkongers’ favoured migration destination. Yet, we know little about how many have left Hong Kong for Canada since 2019. Who are they?

After looking at data from Canada’s newly released 2021 census public-use microdata files, we estimate that a total of 1,851 individuals (62 per cent male and 38 per cent female) left Hong Kong for Canada between 2019 and 2021. Contrary to previous expectations, the population of emigrants from Hong Kong to Canada has significantly declined from around 3,000 between 2016 and 2018 to around 1,852 between 2019 and 2021.

This decline seems to be a positive sign, that the emigration has slowed down. Yet, the demographic features of the recent wave of emigrants suggest that Hong Kong is losing its younger, more educated and resourceful workers.

Migrants from Hong Kong to Canada between 2019 and 2021 predominantly consist of workers aged between 20 and 39 years. Around 48 per cent of the recent emigrants hold bachelor’s degrees and above. The major fields of study of these highly educated migrants are business or STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Over 30 per cent of them had an annual income of more than pre-tax C$200,000 (US$144,648) in calendar year 2020.

The demographic features of the recent emigrants revealed that they are not just young, but also potential high-income earners in fields such as STEM, business and law. These fields of study are among the highly sought-after ones on the Hong Kong government’s talent list. Given their qualifications, these recent emigrants should have been major contributors to Hong Kong and beneficiaries of favourable talent-related policies initiated by the government. However, this sought-after talent chose to leave Hong Kong for Canada.