Though the Hong Kong interior design industry is flourishing, the city currently faces a dearth of well-trained interior designers - and this looks set to continue as work from emerging markets in the region is on the rise. The pinch is being felt across the industry, with even the larger interior design firms finding it difficult to recruit designers.
Offering an explanation for the shortage, Logan MacWatt, managing director of Aedas Interiors, points out that the majority of skilled designers are essentially all fully employed.
'Even though the schools continue to churn out more qualified interior designers, there are not enough to keep up with demand. So it is difficult for us to find the right staff, and the right specialists and experienced staff that we need,' he says.
Ilija Karlusic, co-president Asia-Pacific for HBA, is feeling the squeeze at his firm too and, although the shortage has worsened recently, he points out that it has always been difficult to find good designers in Asia.
'Recruiting highly qualified designers has always been challenging in this region. It is possible that if there continues to be a shortage of qualified interior designers in the market here, the cost of salaries and packages - especially for expatriates employees - will become extremely high and expensive,' Karlusic says.
The salaries and skills of Hong Kong designers are in fact already some of the highest and the best in the region, and designers here are some of the most sought-after in Asia, another factor driving the shortage. As evidence of this, MacWatt points out that the busy Hong Kong design industry has long functioned as a conduit to other countries in the region.
'In Asia, at the moment, there is a lot of investment which requires interior design and architectural services. There is plenty of work in China and other emerging markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia and India. This work is all being channelled through Hong Kong and this is what is fuelling the demand [for interior designers]. Even though we have offices in Shanghai, Singapore and a presence in Vietnam and the Middle East, Hong Kong is our busiest and largest office from which we do a lot of major projects for some of those countries,' says MacWatt.