Hong Kong firms have struggled to reduce staff costs this year with many imposing across the board pay freezes. Hang Lung Properties and Sun Hung Kai Properties stuck with traditional 13-month bonus payouts while Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp and its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank plan to maintain a pay freeze while offering staff performance-linked pay.

Hutchison and its associates, which run businesses ranging from telecommunications, ports, electricity and supermarkets, maintained a salary freeze but for the past decade have been among the few local firms to tie bonus payments to individual performance.

Sources said the group's average managerial payout of three to five months salary was slightly up on last year.

The finance industry, which most aggressively ties staff remuneration to profitability, has seen increased bonus payments due to a booming new share offering market and sharply improved trading volumes in the second half of the year. Morgan Stanley was reported to have paid some of its Hong Kong-based bankers bonuses equal to two years salary.

A Hutchison spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the group's bonus distribution, saying that payments varied by division and depended on performance and length of service.

'Generally our bonus is better than last year,' said a company insider, pointing to strong operating performances in the group's main businesses.

Managers from Hutchison's ports and telecoms divisions are understood to have received the highest rewards, with some pocketing up to 18 months additional pay while employees in a number of sister companies received smaller sums.

Hutchison's port division - which runs Hongkong International Terminals and 32 ports worldwide - reported a 14 per cent growth in operating profits of $3.51 billion in the first half.

Hong Kong's most popular mobile phone operator, Hutchison Telecom, added 100,000 subscribers to 1.8 million this year, while No2 fixed-line operator Hutchison Global Communications, saw record earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of more than $600 million this year.

These cash-cow divisions have offset losses from the group's 3G mobile-phone businesses, which recorded a $3.9 billion loss in the first half. Start-up losses are expected to narrow as handset shortages limited 3G subscriber growth. Hutchison had 660,000 3G users in six countries, up slightly from 520,000 in August.

In Hong Kong, median income for Hong Kong workers with full-time employment was $9,900 a month in the second quarter, a seven-year low. Unemployment has moderated in recent months but commentators point to Hong Kong becoming a society of have and have-nots as low-grade white collar jobs migrate to the mainland.