Survey: 11% of HK's sales and marketing workforce lost amidst city-wide exits

The brain drain continues to impact Hong Kong's various businesses. The sales and marketing industry is losing skilled workers as more than 10% of practitioners have left the city, according to a recent survey conducted by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC).

The survey unveiled that among the surveyed businesses in the city, they had lost about 11% of sales and marketing practitioners. However, the sales and marketing industry was not the most severely impacted sector, as the engineering and technical sector had lost 28% of labours in total, the highest category among all industries, followed by finance and accounting (21%), IT (21%), and senior and general management (20%).

A total of 38% of respondents said they had been adversely affected by the loss of emigrating workers to varying degrees, ranging from medium (24%), high (12%), to very high (2%). Large companies suffered from greater a impact than SMBs as 45% of these organisations said they had been adversely affected. Comparatively, only 29% of SMBs said they had been impacted.

Although more than half (58%) of respondents expected the emigration-induced turnover to stabilise in 2022, 35% of respondents were less optimistic and anticipated more skills shortages.

SMBs in Hong Kong were more confident, as 74% of them believed that their turnover due to emigration would remain the same in the upcoming 12 months. Only 43% of large companies shared the same idea and the same portion of large companies thought that the situation would get worse in the upcoming 12 months.

“Hong Kong is facing an exodus of educated workers on a scale that has not been seen since the early 1990s. This will have a knock-on impact on the economy. Given the importance of human capital in Hong Kong’s service-driven and knowledge-based economy, the situation is concerning if we cannot stem the current brain drain,” said Peter Wong, chairman of HKGCC.

Middle-aged employees were more likely to quit Hong Kong as respondents said the age groups of "30 to 39” and “40 to 49” were the two major categories leaving the city. In terms of organisational hierarchy, middle management and first-level management were more likely to depart, compared to rank and file officers and senior management positions.
To tackle the problem of staff exodus, 61% of large companies opted to strengthen succession planning and recruitment efforts, while 51% said they would increase automation and digitalisation. However, only 28% and 35% of SMEs said that they would make similar investments respectively. At the same time, big corporations prepared to increase their budgets with 39% and 37% of respondents said they were considering "increasing salary and benefits" and “retention planning” respectively. The corresponding responses by SMEs were only 13% and 11% respectively.

The survey also studied the reason for employees leaving Hong Kong. The top three reasons were: better development for children (57%), political considerations (45%), and a higher quality of life (27%). Only 10% of employees said they looked for better social mobility overseas.
Lastly, the loss of skills and knowledge, increased vacancies and adding extra workload for existing employees were the top three challenges for businesses facing employee exodus.
“The global competition for talent is already acute and Hong Kong cannot afford to lose the race to attract and retain talent. To stem the tide of departing workers, it is essential that the government regularly reviews its policies to ensure Hong Kong remains an attractive place to live, work, study and raise a family," Wong added.

(Photo courtesy: 123rf)

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