In Hong Kong’s quest to become a regional hub for higher education, artificial intelligence has emerged as the ultimate disruptor for the next generation of workers. To survive a drastically altered job market, a multifront effort is underway: Students, universities, employers, and the government are all racing to conquer the AI hurdle.

Between 2022 and 2025, full-time job vacancies for university graduates in Hong Kong took a deep dive, dropping from 80,000 to 31,000, while junior administrative positions, which are highly susceptible to AI’s encroachment, witnessed a 90 percent drop, according to JIJIS, an online job information platform shared by the eight UGC-funded tertiary institutions in Hong Kong.

Chris Sun Yuk-han, secretary for labour and welfare, revealed in a Legislative Council meeting on May 13 that the bureau is currently conducting an analysis of the impact of AI on Hong Kong's overall labor market as well as various industries and occupations.

The findings of this analysis will be incorporated into the mid-term update of the manpower projection, which is expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2026, to provide a more comprehensive basis for future policies.

Bearing the brunt of the paradigm shift is Berry Sun, who graduated from Hong Kong Baptist University in June.

The Chinese medicine student, 22, said many of her classmates were worried about becoming unemployed after graduation.

Sun and her peers’ concerns seem to be legitimate, as data from JIJIS precisely mirrors this trend. Within a three-year period, many entry-level positions have disappeared, and the number of jobs in information technology, telecoms and technology have plunged by around 68 percent.

Additionally, the number of employers posting full-time graduate jobs on JIJIS has fallen by 64 percent, from 3,799 in 2022 to 1,383 in 2025.

Universities are also feeling the pressure brought about by the rise of AI, which has been forcing them to undergo an urgent transformation in teaching approaches.

At Lingnan University, the changes have already influenced their flagship Department of Translation. “This is a very serious problem,” said Andrew Yao Cho-fai, a Legislative Council member and Lingnan University council chairman. “Basically, pure translation positions are no longer needed now, so translation students must learn interdisciplinary content, specifically AI translation," Yao said, adding that Lingnan University’s current policy is for traditional disciplines to add an AI component, called “AI+”. Yao said that such restructuring presents some challenges; for example, professors need time to adapt to AI for both teaching and research.

Lingnan University is not an isolated case. Many other universities in Hong Kong have integrated relevant AI courses into their curriculums, either as mandatory requirements or as recommended elective ones.

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The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology provides online courses with AI literacy certificates for students, encouraging students to cultivate practical skills at different levels.

Meanwhile, the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University both set AI literacy courses as a prerequisite for graduation.

However, students remain skeptical. A freshman studying journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University, who gives his surname as Li, said the AI course he took was “almost useless”, as the content was too basic and shallow, and not deep enough to meet the job market’s demands.

Globally, the same trends are also taking shape. The 2025 IDC Employee Experience survey, generated by the global analyst firm International Data Corp, revealed that around two thirds of enterprises are cutting entry-level hiring in view of AI adoption.

With AI adoption, the traditional divide between the humanities and STEM subjects will soon narrow and even vanish, leaving only one distinction: those who use AI and those who do not, Yao said.

Iris Mai, a senior university student studying film, said that human synesthesia and cognitive complexity remain beyond the algorithm's substitution. Though the film industry may face some shocks due to AI, particularly in an era of full-length content and cost-cutting, the deep emotional resonance shared among directors, actors, and the audience is something Mai believes AI can never replicate.

To address the shift, Priscilla Leung Mei-fun, a Legislative Council member and a professor at City University of Hong Kong’s School of Law, said the modern workplace now expects fresh graduates to possess advanced AI capabilities. These newcomers are therefore forced to "leapfrog" into management roles upon entering the workforce — except they are managing AI.

“Furthermore, they must take on the responsibility of reviewing and overseeing AI generated outcomes,” Leung said. She also thinks that the priority now is to train graduates to gatekeep and check the accuracy of AI-generated content.

In a more proactive approach, an AI-focused education blueprint was unveiled in June to provide guidelines for the city’s primary and secondary schools for integrating AI into the next generation’s education. This includes required training hours on AI for teachers, a quota of no less than 50,000 training places annually for educators and management to enable them to keep abreast of AI technology, and one-off funding for campuses to upgrade their AI-related infrastructure and expenditure.

In addition, both Yao and Leung said they agree that human-based qualities will become the ultimate key to securing jobs.

Yao said he believes that the true human skills lie in what students learn and cultivate during their university years, such as teamwork, professional ethics, and the art of human interaction.

Similarly, in Leung’s view, an individual's personality, social skills, and genuine capabilities are now the decisive factors for success in finding work.

The Chinese medicine graduate, Sun, has decided to continue with her postgraduate studies, despite the AI shockwave, and hopes to hone her skills to better prepare her for when she has work with the “mighty enemy”.

Roys Zhang contributed to the story.