Lawmakers and experts have stressed the need to develop more comprehensive strategies to tackle the city’s labor shortage, following a government projection indicating that the aging population will make up over one-third of the total population by 2046.
Hong Kong’s population is projected to reach 8.19 million by mid-2046, with 36 percent of the population aged 65 or above, according to a report submitted by the Census and Statistics Department to the Legislative Council on Tuesday.
The proportion of elderly people aged 65 or above in the city’s total population will increase from 22.7 percent in 2023 to 36 percent in 2046.
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The proportion of the population in the 0-14 age group will drop from 10.8 percent to 7.1 percent, and the labor force participation rate will drop from 55.2 percent in 2023 to 51.6 percent in 2046, the report showed.
Hong Kong’s demographic structure will become an “inverted pyramid”, which means greater aging pressures. Recruitment of talents and importation of labor will provide an important impetus to the city’s population growth in the next 20 years, said James Cheng Lap-yan, acting assistant commissioner for Census and Statistics.
Lawmaker Chan Siu-hung pointed out that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s Population Policy report was announced nine years ago, and the current situation has changed a lot. He suggested the authority should review and update the population policy on a regular basis to cope with new changes.
Lawmaker Lo Wai-kwok emphasized that the SAR’s workforce is insufficient to meet the demands of grassroots labor jobs. Policymakers should consider the ratio between migrant workers and permanent residents when formulating long-term population policies, he said.
He further noted that there is no high-level supervision or an overall blueprint for the population policy. Lo said he hoped that the Legislative Council can facilitate the government in completing these tasks.
The Hong Kong government’s latest Policy Address introduced a one-off newborn baby bonus of HK$20,000 ($2,560), which is implemented for a period of three years. Chan Kar-choi, lecturer of Department of Social Work of Chinese University of Hong Kong said he believes the policy will have a limited impact on stimulating the birth rate, as it may not help address highly-educated talents’ worries concerning their children’s education and employment prospects. He suggested that officials should look into other measures to achieve the goal.
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In recent years, Hong Kong has launched a number of schemes to attract talents and import workers. Chan proposed offering greater help for newly-arrived talents to integrate into Hong Kong society and move up the social ladder.
He added that nearby cities like Shenzhen are also actively recruiting talents, suggesting that Hong Kong and Shenzhen should study how to attract different kinds of talents to bolster complementary strengths, or provide convenient measures to facilitate the cross-border commute of the talents.
According to Ho Kai-ming, under-secretary for Labour and Welfare, the government is conducting a new round of manpower projections, which will cover traditional industries and the manpower demand of industries related to Hong Kong’s positioning of the “eight centers” outlined in the nation’s 14th Five Year Plan. The results are expected at the beginning of next year.
