Frozen 3

Fresh grad hiring freezes create ice storm for young Hong Kong talent

The Frozen 3: hiring freezes have hit three sectors particularly hard; Tourism & Events, Tech and Construction

Two-thirds of organisations in Hong Kong have no hiring plans for young talent in 2020, and those that do are doing so in single digits. The Frozen 3: hiring freezes have hit three sectors particularly hard: Tourism & Events, Tech and Construction. This, according to HR Magazine’s most recent pulse survey of over 500 hiring heads across HR in all sectors. The Survey to gauge current HR hiring intentions, revealed somewhat icy findings for fresh grads. Despite the Government’s best efforts at stimulating hiring with the ESS wage subsidy scheme, over 62% of organisations indicated they are freezing headcount, in particular for fresh grads, throughout 2020. Moreover, the vast majority of the 38% of organisations who said they were currently recruiting fresh grad talent indicated that the number of such new hires would only be in the single digits. It is not all doom and gloom though, as there were notable opportunities reported in the F&B, Banking & Finance, Legal and IT sectors—all of which reported incidences of actively hiring fresh grads, albeit in small numbers.

Tourism & events centre of storm
The plethora of recent quarantine and travel restrictions has dealt a massive blow for the Tourism Sector, with over 66% of those surveyed, reporting hiring freezes, due to the uncertain business environment. The only exception being e-support and development roles in the IT and IS fields, which are still seeing limited hiring activity.

Likewise, event organisers and event venues have seen their businesses collapse due to social distancing, and those that have not already moved to online formats, are unlikely to have enough liquidity to weather much more of the storm. With all international exhibitions and events currently on hold, venues, event organisers and related service providers are freezing their recruitment headcount throughout 2020. This is not good news for fresh graduates. However, unfortunately, this is the reality for most of the year, some organisations did indicate that they may consider taking on fresh grads at a later stage but not before Q4 of 2020.

Difficulty getting right tech talent
Specific sectors, including the Chemical, Engineering and Tech sectors, are reporting challenges in finding the right talent, due to the difficulties in obtaining overseas talent due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. In the Engineering Sector, 2020 has been a challenging year for many organisations, because there are fewer suitable applicants in the local pool—probably due to the protracted periods of social unrest and COVID-19 study disruptions leaving many local students in this sector unable to graduate formally from local universities.

The lack of suitability-qualified local talent was also highlighted at the recent FinTech webinar jointly hosted by InvestHK, The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Shenzhen Fintech Association. During the webinar, Mr Angus Choi, Chief Executive Officer, JETCO Hong Kong, highlighted talent shortages in the local FinTech pool. He said, “There is an urgent need for overseas FinTech talent to supplement the supply of local graduates. However, since local talent is in limited supply, HR needs to develop apps and better leverage blockchain recruitment technology to reach out to overseas FinTech talent for interview. We then need to think about how we can attract them to work in Hong Kong.”

Supply Chain & Construction Sectors
COVID-19 has had a strong negative impact on the construction industry with projects facing labour shortages, financial pressures and supply chain issues—particularly on the supply of cement. 90% of property projects have been delayed in Hong Kong as a result. This has been further compounded by the fact that many workers could not return from mainland China after the Lunar New Year holiday China due to the lockdown. Subsequently, most organisations in the construction sector either have a hiring freeze, or minimal hiring, with many actively downsizing and rationalising costs.

Who is hiring?
The F&B Sector, which traditionally sees quite high churn rates, is reporting positive movement in terms of hiring. With families tiring of social distancing, and some easing of government distancing guidelines, F&B outlets, or at least those that manged to suffer rents over the last months, are seeing an uptick in business. This has necessitated bringing onboard a wave of fresh talent into the sector. One popular dine-in pizza chain reported hiring 100 part-time staff in May, with plans to onboard an additional 100 part-time and 200 full-time staff over the next two months.

Likewise, the Retail Sector, after several months of inertia, is now seeing the first signs of a thaw in business activities. While far for boom times, a third of respondents from the retail sector indicated that they are currently hiring fresh graduates for frontline roles. The number of positions on offer is still generally low: in the single digits for full-time positions and an average of 10 – 30 part-time positions on offer. However, even in this sector, headcounts for office roles have almost all been frozen as stores take a cautious approach as they are finding it difficult to predict precisely when the economy and consumer spending will get back to normal.

Organisations in the IT Sector, reported by far the most positive hiring trends, with over 88% of respondents indicating that they would be taking on fresh grads in 2020—albeit in much smaller numbers than 2019. Most organisations are looking at single-digit hires, and even traditionally large IT hirers who are hiring are doing so at significantly reduced headcounts for 2020 (down an average of 40% on their 2019 hiring levels).

The Banking & Finance Sector also continues to offer some promise for fresh grads in 2020, with just under third reporting current hiring intentions. Many banks are reporting 1 – 20 opportunities for fresh grads in 2020, one bank reported BAU with no change at all to its hiring levels in Hong Kong. Indeed, certain banks are still hiring to cover a few senior positions, but, while at the group level, there is a minuscule degree of strategic hiring taking place for business-critical roles, these would not usually be given to fresh grads. The sector tone is generally to try and hire internally, and 66% of organisations reported a complete hiring freeze due to the current ‘exceptional circumstances’.

Kimmie Chan, Director - Consumer & Retail and Sales, Marketing & Communications, ConnectedGroup, confirmed that her organisation, too, does not have any plans to hire graduates at this time. She shared with us the results of their survey on how the market is reacting to the COVID-19 outbreak, and what the longer-term impacts might be.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-covid-19-talent-strategies-hong-kong-kimmie-chan/