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SCMP Reporter

COMPANIES are asking key personnel whether they plan to stay after 1997, as analysts warn of a critical period in the months ahead.

  Firms, eager to develop strategies and work out staff requirements, are becoming increasingly sensitive to transitional concerns and are pressing staff to state their intentions.

  President of the Institute of Human Resource Management, Patrick Maule, said the trend was 'not uncommon', particularly among the upper ranks of larger companies.

  'There is a real risk in there that significant numbers of people - managers - could leave,' he said.

  An institute survey released in July showed more than half those emigrating within the workforce last year were managers, supervisors and professionals.

  Mr Maule said: 'The question is what is the size of the probability. I think the judgment would be that there's a significant probability of a significant problem.

  'There will numbers of people going in the last 18 months [of British rule] which causes companies some distress,' he said, without naming the firms.

  Internal studies suggested many key management personnel were undecided about the future and were playing for time before committing themselves.

  'There could still be people who are putting off their decision to the last moment,' Mr Maule said.

  But official figures suggest the number of people planning to leave Hong Kong may be levelling out.

  The number of applications for the Certificate of No Criminal Conviction, a mandatory document for settling abroad, are expected to be similar this year to 1994.

  Between January and November, there were 44,698 requests, police said. Last year, there were 46,956 applications, nearly 12,000 down from 1993.

   Hong Kong University Department of Geography and Geology academic, Dr Ronald Skeldon, said the figures were consistent with recent demographic patterns at a time when countries were tightening their entry requirements.

  But because large numbers of people were returning to Hong Kong with foreign passports, he said, a huge 'invisible' pool of potential migrants was being created.

  It is estimated the group, including expatriates, could number up to 700,000.

  'The people who will go have already got their passports.

  'So it is not going to appear in any of the official statistics,' he said.

  'Those who might be worried have already made the provision.

  'The high figures in the post-Tiananmen period represent a much longer term concern than just those three years,' he said, referring to peak migration periods in the early 1990s.

  Principal Assistant Secretary for Security Maureen Chan Mong-lin said figures of immigrant visa applicants for 1995 were expected to show a slight drop.



Key staff questioned over post-97 plans