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Paggie Leung

The unemployment rate has declined for the first time since the global financial crisis hit Hong Kong last autumn, but economists do not expect the trend to continue. 
It fell to 5.3 per cent for the months of July, August and September, 0.1 of a percentage point less than the rate in June, July and August, the Census and Statistics Department  said.
'As business conditions gradually improve and the labour market stabilises, employers may adopt a more positive attitude towards recruitment,' Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung  said yesterday. 'This is expected to ease the pressure on the unemployment rate in the near term.' 
The number of unemployed fell by about 7,700 to 209,100, although 1,700 more people became underemployed, pushing that number to 89,900.
Hang Seng Bank senior economist Irina Fan Yuen-yee said that while there were 7,700 fewer unemployed, the size of the workforce had shrunk by about 7,400 people. 
Cheung said improvement was most obvious in the construction, information and communications sectors, and  the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors. 
The jobless rate for those aged between 15 and 19 fell by 2.7 percentage points to 25.7 per cent. 
Cheung said the Labour Department posted 60,998 private-sector vacancies last month, 15.6 per cent more than in August. 
Andrea Williams, a managing director at recruitment firm Ambition, said it had seen job vacancies increase by about 10 to 15 per cent in the third quarter of the year. 
'The third quarter  ... saw a turning point in recruitment sentiment with an encouraging pick-up  in activity as organisations took comfort that the worst really was behind us,' Williams said, adding that the rise in confidence had flowed through especially to the financial industry. 
However, Cheung warned that 'the recovery path may still be uneven' because overseas markets had yet to show visible improvement. 
Cheung's view was echoed by economists, who said the latest jobless rate was better than forecast. 
'The figure goes down earlier than expected but it doesn't mean the downward trend will continue, because it usually takes six to 12 months for the jobless rate to drop after a recovery,' Kelvin Lau Kin-hang, regional economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said. 
Lau said some industries had benefited  from the recovery of the capital and asset markets, but a full recovery had yet to be seen. 
'Even though companies may not fire people, they may not start recruiting again,' he said, adding that he expected the jobless rate to remain at 5 per cent or above for another six to nine months. 
Fan, of Hang Seng Bank, said: 'There is no significant improvement in the trade and logistics industry, which is a key sector employing about 25 per cent of the labour force  ... and the industry is still highly affected by the uncertain consumer markets in Europe and the US.'
A pay survey conducted by the Hong Kong People Management Association  and Hong Kong Baptist University's Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development also shows improvement in the employment market. 
The poll of 104 organisations that hired a total of 66,067 employees found they offered an average pay rise of about 0.5 per cent this year, the lowest since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. 
But the 48 companies who provided data about pay adjustments for next year said that they would increase staff salaries by more than 1.3 per cent on average. 
Association president Dr Felix Yip Wai-kwong  said: 'It's a prudent yet optimistic figure, given that operating costs have been increasing. For example, firms are affected by the appreciation of the renminbi because of the weakening US dollar.'
Association vice-president Pauline Chung Hei-ching  said some companies were unable to  provide figures for next year because economic uncertainty had led them to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Some would delay pay adjustments from January to April. 
'It's because the business outlook for next year is not clear yet .... and they want to see how  other companies will adjust before making any decision,' Chung said. 
People working in non-governmental organisations expected the biggest pay rises next year, between 1.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent. The engineering industry had the lowest expectations for a rise, 0.5 per cent to 0.8 per cent, followed by the sales and marketing industry, 0.8 per cent.
The study found that the average starting salary for university graduates in Hong Kong this year was HK$10,380 a month, down from HK$10,839 last year.



Jobless rate drops for first time since the meltdown