Time to rally round youngsters facing jobs challenge
- With unemployment in Hong Kong now running at a 10-year high, graduates have had to temper their career ambitions. But all is not lost: a little understanding from parents will go a long way
University graduates could not have anticipated so bleak a job market as that brought on by the coronavirus and protests when they began their final academic year. Unemployment in Hong Kong is now at 5.2 per cent, a 10-year high, with all sectors of the economy having suffered badly.
Experts say the number of vacancies for the anticipated 20,000 to 30,000 new degree holders has more than halved and the average salary has been cut by as much as one-fifth.
There are bound to be many cursing their luck, questioning the worth of going to college and wondering if their sights were on the right career choice.
Anxiety is a usual part of entering the job market for the first time, but the prospect of a long stretch of unemployment is stressful, even traumatic. Disappointment is more commonplace this year, though, as application letters get ignored or rejected and even internships and training positions are difficult to come by.
Company profits have been hard hit and expansion plans replaced by cost-cutting. The recruitment website JobsDB says there were only about 20,000 vacancies for graduates between January and April, 55 per cent less than for the same period in 2019.