By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-11-14 11:47:02 | Updated at 2024-11-22 09:52:23
1 week ago
Hong Kong’s labour shortage is expected to worsen and hit 180,000 by 2028 driven by a rapidly ageing elderly population projected to account for almost one-third of the city’s residents.
The Labour and Welfare Bureau on Thursday also predicted skilled technical staff, such as escalator mechanics and construction workers, would make up more than one-third of the total shortage.
The study, conducted in 2023, analysed 17 key sectors and gathered views from more than 1,000 industry players to determine the supply and demand of manpower in the coming five years.
The government predicted a 3.56 million manpower supply and 3.75 million demand in 2028, which would result in a 180,000 shortage, based on the assumption the economy would grow by 3.2 per cent each year.
That marked a 260 per cent increase compared with the 50,000 shortage in 2023.
“The ageing population is our biggest challenge,” Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said. “The working population will shrink while the median age of workers will increase.”
By 2028, more than two million, or 28 per cent of the population, would be elderly aged 65 or above.
