Hays Asia Salary Guide 2023: Hong Kong companies on the hunt for ESG and digital talents amid talent war

Hays Plc, a leading global professional recruiting group is pleased to announce the launch of the 2023 Hays Asia Salary Guide ("the Guide") today, which surveyed 10,191 skilled professionals and 3,630 employers from the mainland of China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore, to navigate the evolving work landscape and recruitment strategies.

"Organisations are preparing themselves to navigate through impending challenges and uncertainty in the year ahead. Although hiring appetite remains high, recruitment activity and jobs growth are expected to slow, which by no means relieves the talent and skills shortage in the region," said Marc Burrage, Managing Director, Hays Asia.

In view of the possible economic downturn caused by the ongoing pandemic, the Guide discovered that Hong Kong staff levels in 2022 have slower growth than anticipated. In 2022, 41.8% of employers in Hong Kong reported hiring more staff in comparison to the initial projection of 44.6%. However, trends show that employers are still keen to hire as demonstrated in the projected increase of 43.9% of new hires in 2023. In particular, there is a rising trend for employers in Hong Kong to hire contingent workers on a regular, ongoing basis.

Matching salary expectations to retain talents

The salary expectation gap between employers and employees is still prominent in Hong Kong, as most employees expect to increase between 3-6%, whereas employers only plan to increase up to 3%. In fact, the gap remain to be a key deciding factor for employees to leave a firm. The Guide reveals that 80% of respondents in Hong Kong are willing to leave their jobs for better salaries.

Salary satisfaction also emerged as the top motivator for almost 70% of respondents who did not intend to switch jobs. Moreover, out of 82.4% of respondents in Hong Kong are jobseekers, only 28.5% were actively seeking jobs compared to about 35% in 2021, which suggests that employees are still prone to switching jobs given the desired renumeration package despite fewer active jobseekers.

Sue Wei, Managing Director, Hays Hong Kong SAR added, "It is crucial for employees to proactively bridge the salary expectation gap by rewarding their employees fairly in order to retain their talent in such a competitive market. Employees want to see their performances to be acknowledged and properly rewarded; employers can easily benchmark their packages against competitors through salary guides"

Sustainability on the rise for future readiness

In 2022, organisations started to implement sustainability as a pivotal corporate development agenda and embedded ESG in connection with business activities to reshape recruitment strategies for talent. In Asia, data showed that 47% of employers in Hong Kong implemented sustainability reporting, while the percentage the mainland of China, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore are 60%, 47%, 54% and 46%, respectively. The growing trend on sustainability and ESG regulatory requirements drove the strong demand in Hong Kong for experienced professionals in risk & compliance, accountancy and finance, office professionals and operation. Due to the current shortage of local and expatriate talent, 38% of employers in Hong Kong anticipate recruiting staff in 2023 to meet peaks in demand, whilst salary increments are expected to be over 30% for these hires.

"Hong Kong wants experienced global talents to revive the job market amidst talent outflow and regional economic recovery. Demand for experienced professionals in ESG, compliance and digital and technology such as cloud computing, cyber security, big data, data privacy and artificial intelligence are expected to flourish." commented Sue Wei, Managing Director, Hays Hong Kong SAR.

Digitalisation in support of skills and talent shortage

The accelerating digital transformation across all industry sectors has driven the demand for Hong Kong tech talents in Hong Kong. Industries including banking and finance, accountancy and finance audit, risk and compliance, HR, and insurance are advancing at faster pace. In turn, they are on the lookout for talents who can bridge the gap between business and IT with specific skills in data and management. This is also demonstrated in the data which shows that 68.6% of employers value technical skills in terms of hard skills in Hong Kong.

Survey findings back the still fierce competition in the sector as salary increments reach up to 30% for tech talents such as software engineers and DevOps engineers. In light of this, employers are also expected to lean toward hiring contract roles for positions such as cloud mitigation infrastructure professionals, project managers and business analysts.

To mitigate talent shortage, the Hong Kong government introduced the several policies aimed at helping organisations in Hong Kong last year. "The tax incentives for the fintech and healthcare industries, as well as the 'Top Talent Scheme' will attract a larger pool of young talent and expatriates to work in Hong Kong. This may relieve the workforce shortage in those industries." said Sue Wei, Managing Director, Hays Hong Kong SAR.