Hong Kong’s fresh graduates are earning HK$300,000 a year on average, a 7.8% increase from 2021, according to data from the city’s eight publicly funded universities.
A human resources expert attributed the rise to a labour shortage, which prompted employers to fork out slightly more to attract talent, but fresh graduates said many challenges remained in navigating the local job market.
The figure released earlier by the University Grants Committee covered more than 17,700 graduates across eight universities, accounting for 84% of the total cohort in full-time undergraduate programmes.
Hong Kong lost 94,000 workers in 2022 – the biggest drop in the labour force since records began four decades ago.
The results showed an improvement across the board in the employment situation of university graduates in 2022, with the average annual salary rising by 7.8% from HK$281,000 to HK$303,000.
Graduates from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) continued to top the salary chart, with an average annual salary of HK$371,000, followed by those from Chinese University (CUHK) at HK$366,000.
A pay rise, ranging from 4 to 14 % was recorded across graduates from the eight institutions, but three universities – the University of Science and Technology (HKUST), City University (CityU), and CUHK, stood out with a 10% jump in wages.
Across disciplines, graduates of medicine, dentistry, and nursing programmes remained at the top with HK$494,000 a year, followed by those from education programmes, with an average annual pay of HK$353,000.
Graduates from all other disciplines, meanwhile, made less than HK$300,000 a year, despite a seven to 13% increase from 2021.
Among them, those with a science or business background recorded the biggest annual jump with HK$287,000 and HK$289,000 respectively, more than 10% or a HK$30,000 increase from the previous year.
Those with an engineering and technology, and social sciences background managed about HK$265,000 a year.
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Arts and humanities graduates continued to record the lowest average pay of HK$251,000 annually, though this was already 7% higher than in 2021.
Armstrong Lee Hon-cheung, managing director of Worldwide Consulting Group, attributed the pay increase to the labour shortfall in the city.
“If employers wanted to secure top talent, they would have to pay more, but the increment was not high, so it would not affect their budget a lot,” Lee noted.
He said the pay increase for science and business graduates was a result of the high labour demand in those industries in recent years.
“In recent years we have talked about cloud computing and big data analysis a lot, and they are all related to sciences,” he said.
“Almost all industries are undergoing a digital transformation too … apart from talent with information technology backgrounds, such companies also need a substantial influx of people with business and management knowledge and skills.”
In the long run, Lee said the government should consider importing more talent from overseas, and step up efforts to retain foreign talent from local universities to maintain productivity amid the falling birth rate. He stressed that talent was lacking at all levels.
Some fresh graduates told the SCMP there were still challenges in forging the right career path.
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Hugo Chiu, a 25-year-old who graduated from HKU’s business and law programme in 2022, obtained three decent offers in the finance industry, after sending about 20 job applications since the beginning of his final year.
The three offers, which included an analyst position in one of the big four accounting firms, would pay him HK$20,000 to HK$30,000 a month, but he opted for postgraduate studies.
“After consulting some industry insiders, I found that my competitiveness will be a lot higher with a PCLL (postgraduate certificate in laws), so I went for it,” he said.
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“But the economy and the IPO (initial public offering) market was sluggish when I started my second round of job-hunting, many companies were laying off people and reducing headcounts, making the whole process very stressful.”
Chiu managed to secure one trainee solicitor offer, after sending 40 job applications. He will make HK$45,000 a month starting from September when he starts the new job.
For Yolanda Yau, 23, who graduated from City University majoring in media and communications this year, there has been a mismatch between expectation and reality.
Yau started her career as a video producer, but it ended abruptly six months later due to the company’s restructuring.
“I was quite lost after leaving the video producer job, I kept asking myself what’s next, but it’s not an easy task to explore my interests again,” she said.
After sending a dozen of resumes and going to a few interviews, she subsequently landed a marketing job in two weeks, but she was not quite happy with it.
“I tried to negotiate for a better salary in the job interview, but they did not recognise my previous experience and could only offer a 10% pay rise from my previous job,” she said.
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She said her current HK$16,000 monthly salary was HK$2,000 less than what she was expecting.
Looking ahead, Yau said she could only “play by ear” amid uncertainty.
“When I decided to change industries, salary became my major concern but I did not have many choices considering my background … I am not optimistic about my new job indeed, but let’s see how it goes.” – SCMP
