The number of people seeking retraining had jumped by nearly 30 per cent since September, the Employees Retraining Board said.

The board's Rebecca Pun Ting-ting said the number joining retraining programmes was 7,000 a month until August, after which the figure rose to 9,000.

'The board will provide more training places to cope with the demand. We see strong demand for training in property management, hotels, accounting, information technology and health care,' she said.