Poll reveals gloom on economic outlook
More than half of Hong Kong people interviewed in a survey doubt the city's economy will bounce back in the second half of the year.
The poll of more than 1,500 people, carried out by the Democratic Party before the government revised upward its economic growth forecast last week, aimed to gauge the views of young people and their parents on career prospects and Hong Kong's economic performance.
It found that 52.8 per cent of the respondents did not have confidence in the city's economy for the rest of the year and only 32.4 per cent believed a rebound was imminent.
Of the 488 students surveyed, 57.3 per cent said they were not confident about finding a job after graduating, while 22.9 per cent expressed confidence.
Among the 985 parents polled, 58 per cent were not confident their children would find jobs, while 26.3 per cent believed otherwise.
The survey also asked unemployed young people how they would spend their free time. Of the 96 polled, 36 said they would continue searching for jobs, 33 would rather stay at home, 14 would opt for further education and the remaining 13 said they preferred going out shopping with friends.
Legislator Wong Sing-chi, the Democratic Party's spokesman for youth affairs, said the findings reflected the government's failure to provide a long-term programme to help the city's young people.
While the study was done before the government raised its full-year growth forecast from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent on Friday, Mr Wong said he believed the results would be similar if the survey was conducted now.
'For parents and students, they don't see any improvement in the current economy and the employment prospects,' he said.
Mr Wong urged the government to come up with a long-term policy to address the record-high unemployment among young people.
