Bringing the children back home: overseas Hongkongers become target talent pool
The city must try harder to improve its labour and living environments in order to appeal to children of migrated Hongkongers, stakeholders say
Second-generation overseas Hongkongers have become the target talent pool in the government's latest population blueprint aimed at overcoming the ageing demographic and shortage of skilled labour. But relaxing immigration restrictions alone will not be enough, according to these people, born in foreign lands to Hong Kong parents.
They share the view of population experts that, while the city appeals as a career destination because of its global edge, the education of their young children, limited housing supply, labour benefits and pollution may be drawbacks.
[In Ireland] we have 22 to 24 days [of leave] a year, on top of bank holidays and public holidays
The reactions appear to temper the government's hopes that a new scheme will attract more of these people to return to their parents' hometown and contribute to the workforce, which is expected to start shrinking in 2018.
Under the pilot scheme, announced in Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's policy address on Wednesday, children born to permanent Hong Kong residents who have emigrated can apply for a one-year visa to look for work in the city. Applicants must be aged 18 to 40, have a university degree, understand English or Chinese and prove they can afford to live in the city.
Their right of abode became a matter of legal dispute after the 1997 handover. In a judicial review in 2012, the High Court upheld the government's refusal to issue a permanent Hong Kong identity card to such a child on the grounds that his parents had settled abroad and he himself had acquired foreign nationality at birth.