Local young people lavished praise on the government’s new proposals that include subsidies for youth to work and start businesses in the mainland cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, saying the programs will provide jobs that are scarce in the city.
READ MORE: Policy Address helps restore public confidence
Several young Hong Kong residents spoke to China Daily after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her fourth Policy Address on Wednesday unveiled two major programs that are designed to encourage the city’s youth to start careers in the Bay Area’s mainland cities, as well as to help alleviate high unemployment in the special administrative region amid an economy battered by violent protests and the coronavirus pandemic.
If all the places are filled up, more than a tenth of Hong Kong’s near 20,000 college graduates each year will be employed on the mainland. It will enhance the young people’s knowledge and understanding of the latest developments of their motherland
Chan Chi-ho,
vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Young Commentators
Frankie Ngan Man-yu, director of the Young Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the youth branch of DAB, the city’s largest political party, said the plan would provide more development opportunities for young people who aspire to work in sectors such as innovation and technology, high-end manufacturing and big-data analysis.
Young people often have difficulty finding internships or employment opportunities in their chosen fields, due to Hong Kong’s strong service-oriented economy.
Ngan cited the example of an internship program jointly launched by DAB and Wahaha Group, a global beverage producer, in Hangzhou. For Hong Kong students majoring in nutrition, it is hard for them to get valuable hands-on experience in cutting-edge company laboratories locally, he said.
The new employment plan subsidizes eligible companies with operations in the Bay Area to recruit university graduates from Hong Kong and local residents who graduate elsewhere. The program, which is expected to be launched at the end of this year, will have 2,000 slots, of which one-fifth will be in the innovation and technology industry and the rest in other sectors.
ALSO READ: CE: Hong Kong will continue to be an international city
Starting salaries for technology positions would be at least HK$26,000 ($3,355), including a HK$18,000 subsidy from the SAR government. The other positions will be paid not less than HK$18,000, of which the Hong Kong government will pay HK$10,000. The subsidies will be provided for 18 months.
Chan Chi-ho, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Young Commentators, found the salary subsidy appealing as, in his opinion, the salary gap between the mainland and Hong Kong is one of the key factors that hold them back from going to the mainland.
According to a survey by Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, the average salary of college graduates was HK$21,000 in 2018, much higher than 4,522 yuan ($688) for college graduates from Guangdong province in the same year, according to a report by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province.
Many university graduates in Hong Kong are not paid as much as HK$26,000 after graduation, thus the program will prompt them to set their sights on the mainland, learn and understand about the market there, Chan said.
If all the places are filled up, more than a tenth of Hong Kong’s near 20,000 college graduates each year will be employed on the mainland, he said. It will enhance the young people’s knowledge and understanding of the latest developments of their motherland, he added.
In a separate program for the youth Entrepreneurship program, the government will provide HK$100 million to help an estimated 200 youth startups and 4,000 young people. The selected startups will not only get seed funding of HK$600,000, but also receive tax and accountancy services from 16 NGOs that will also each receive HK$1 million each year for the three-year program.
Patrick Choi, an architect and interior designer from Hong Kong who started his own studio in Shenzhen, believes a new platform, established by the government to facilitate information exchange and promotion under the entrepreneurship program, will help startups adapt to the mainland market quickly and have a more stable start.
When he started his own business in Shenzhen four years ago, it took him a year of consulting various Shenzhen companies for legal services, recruitment, and online e-commerce before he could begin the operation, said Choi.
The platform will be conducive to the overall promotion and development of Hong Kong enterprises in the Bay Area, he said.
