Most mainlanders only want to work in Hong Kong short-term, survey finds

Most mainland postgraduate students and migrant workers in Hong Kong consider the city an ideal place for a short-term career, but few want to stay for the long term.

This has emerged from a study commissioned by the think tank Hong Kong Ideas Centre, which said retaining mainland students and professionals would be a good way of easing the labour shortage.

In the study, conducted by consultancy Actrium Solutions last month, 500 mainlanders who had worked or studied in Hong Kong for less than seven years - and who therefore did not have right of abode - were questioned.

Almost three-quarters said they found Hong Kong an ideal place to work for a short time, while 28 per cent said they saw good long-term career prospects in the city and 39 per cent planned to return to the mainland eventually.

The centre's executive director, Anna Lai Wong Oi-ling, said the findings showed that Hong Kong was still an attractive place for mainland professionals.

"If the base does not change and 28 per cent of these mainland students and workers really stay here for the long-term, it is already good for our development," she said.

Those who did not choose Hong Kong or the mainland named other parts of the world, with the most popular being the United States, Canada and Europe. Tiny percentages of these chose Taiwan or Japan and 1 per cent chose Singapore.