Hong Kong was also the only market to be listed in the top five in the “most prevalent talent deficits” and “top emerging talent networks” categories for select industries. - Photo: Yik Yeung-man / SCMP
HONG KONG (SCMP): Hong Kong has ranked ahead of Singapore in terms of having a larger fresh talent pool across five industries, including the emerging life sciences sector, in a survey of more than 30 economies by an international recruitment agency.
The report published on Monday by Hays consistently ranked Hong Kong ahead of Singapore in each sector’s “top emerging talent networks” category, which is based on the proportion of professionals with less than three years of experience.
The survey compared more than 30 economies based on this year’s job listings and candidate profiles across the technology, engineering, banking, financial services and insurance, manufacturing and life sciences industries.
The agency said the findings indicated that Hong Kong had a strong talent supply pipeline.
“Hong Kong’s competitive advantages with talent make it a prime choice for businesses looking for long-term growth,” Hays Greater China managing director Sue Wei said.
“However, this comes with its own set of challenges, such as investing in and developing the prerequisite skills for talent to function effectively.”
In terms of the emerging life sciences sector, Hong Kong had a larger proportion of professionals with up to three years of experience at 38 per cent, compared with 33 per cent for Singapore.
The share of talent with four to seven years of experience reached 30 per cent in Hong Kong and 29 per cent in Singapore. But Singapore took the lead in terms of life science talent with at least eight years of experience, with the proportion standing at 38 per cent.
The figure for Hong Kong was 32 per cent.
“It made it ideal for organisations looking to offshore outsource parts of this function,” Wei said.
The report noted there were about 80,000 life sciences-related jobs advertised around the world and about 5 million people worked in the industry when the agency conducted its research.
But engineering remained the largest industry among the five, with 112 million people working in the sector and 877,000 related job openings globally.
Hong Kong was the only market to be listed in the top five in the “most prevalent talent deficits” and top emerging talent networks categories when it came to the finance and insurance, and banking industries.
“Hong Kong seems eager to address its supply-demand gap,” the report said, adding that one-third of the city’s finance workforce had less than three years of experience.
It suggested that businesses wanting to leverage highly skilled finance professionals could choose to explore the market since Hong Kong had “numerous early career initiatives to fuel the talent pipeline”.
But Hays warned that the chances of securing cost-competitive talent in Hong Kong were “slim” due to the city’s high living costs.
The report also noted the United States and mainland China dominated the rankings in terms of top talent networks when it came to supply and demand, while India and Colombia emerged as the most cost-competitive markets across the five industries.
Hong Kong has returned to the top 10 of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Talent Ranking 2024 for the first time since 2016, rising from 16th to ninth place.
The city saw improvements across all three talent competitiveness factors compared to the previous year, topping the ranking for the percentage of graduates in the sciences and ranking amongst the top five for availability of finance skills, management education effectiveness, and management remuneration.
The government has hailed the achievement as "clear evidence of remarkable progress" in education and talent admission efforts. - South China Morning Post
