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Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung (right) speaks at the Roundtable meeting. Representatives expressed serious concern for Hong Kong young people's bleak employment prospects this year amid the financial crisis.

The global financial tsunami that has swept through Hong Kong shows little signs of subsiding. Amid the economic downturn, many businesses have laid off staff to cut operating costs.

Even those companies who were contemplating expanding their business have shelved their expansion and recruitment plans. With tens of thousands of graduates entering the job market soon, those with no work experience will face serious challenges in their pursuit of a job.

Last week, Recruit and China Daily Hong Kong Edition co-sponsored a roundtable session, inviting government official, academic and business representatives to discuss the youth employment question and share their insights. The guest speakers also offered job-seeking advice to young people during this difficult time.

Since September last year when the financial tsunami began, unemployment has been rising every month until it peaked at 5.3 percent between March and May this year, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung told the roundtable meeting.

He called it a kind of breathing space but there is no room for complacency, since the jobless rate is under pressure to go up again, given the economic uncertainties arising from the biggest depression in 60 years.

Cheung was particularly concerned with the prospects for young people, noting that the jobless rates for the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups stood so high at 21 percent and 10 percent respectively.

The government would do its best to help young people equip themselves, he vowed. The new Internship Programme for University Graduates provides 3,000 local and 1,000 mainland training opportunities for one year and Cheung was pleased that a few days after the programme was announced, more than 2,000 offers from Hong Kong and mainland enterprises were received, of which 1,600 are local offers.

The participating local businesses include many large, well-known enterprises from across the board. Among the mainland enterprises taking part in this scheme, they include businesses in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta.

Cheung further pointed out that the average salary of the offers is over HK$9,000, while 80 percent of the offers range from HK$8,000 to HK$12,000 and very few under HK$6,000, refuting suggestions that university graduates are being exploited as 'cheap labor'.

Cheung said he was grateful to the companies for supporting the internship scheme since he knew many of them do not have any job vacancies at this time but were still prepared to provide jobs to support the government and fulfill their corporate social responsibility.

To benefit the 15-19 year olds, the Youth Pre-Employment Training Programme (YPTP) and the Youth Work Experience and Training Scheme will be improved. For instance, the amount of subsidy to companies hiring trainees and the period of subsidy will both increase.

In addition, the scope of the Employees Retraining Board has been broadened to include training on top of retraining activities and also young persons from 15 years old, Cheung said.

The YPTP was launched in 2000 with financial support from The Hong Kong Jockey Club. Speaking of the programme, Mimi Cunningham, the Club's director of human resources and sustainability, described it as a multi-win solution for the Labour Department, employers and the students. Although the Club has no vacancies for university graduates this year, it will provide 10 job offers in support of the Internship Programme for University Graduates.

Vocational Training Council (VTC) chairman Andrew Leung said the financial tsunami will dampen the employment prospects of their graduates this year. To mitigate the impact, the VTC has adopted new measures, including customized training to help graduates find jobs and more YPTP training places, higher diploma and top-up university places to enable them to enhance their competitiveness.

In his opinion, graduates should seize the opportunity to further their studies rather than become jobless. If they are out of work for a long time, they will become idle, feel frustrated and lose their mobility.

Royce Yuen, chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy Hong Kong, said the financial tsunami has seriously affected the advertising field because many companies have cut their advertising and marketing budgets.

Working with the government, the advertising industry has recently created 50 full-time and 50 summer jobs for fresh university graduates to give them the chance to work in international advertising agencies.

It is a win-win solution, said Yuen, since the agencies can attract new blood and graduates have the chance to develop a career in the creative industry.

Traditionally, the advertising industry rarely recruited fresh graduates because it preferred experienced professionals to deliver instant success. But the scene has now changed and Yuen believed young people can help promote new, hip products such as digital products.

Kathy Chan, chief executive of Bossini International Holdings Ltd, said the financial tsunami had not dealt a heavy blow on their company. On the whole, the retail trade in Hong Kong has not been seriously affected. Rather than cutting staff and wages, Bossini, as a retail fashion chain, still needs plenty of frontline staff at its shops and now has close to 1,000 staff.

Jacky Kwan, chairman of Bamboo Professional Nursing Services, said university graduates are unwilling to take up jobs in the healthcare field such as healthcare assistants and personal care attendants. As a result, there is high staff turnover as recruits are often not appropriate for the sector.

Economics professor Francis Lui, from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, reckons it is good for young people to further their studies even if they are attending institutions as a shelter from the financial storm.

A decade or two ago, obtaining a university degree was a remarkable feat but as Hong Kong moves towards the era of economic globalization, a university degree is now seen as just the very basic qualification.

This year, Lui has noticed that fewer graduates had applied for PhD programs but more graduates had enrolled in one-year Master programs, which they believe will help them to secure jobs more easily.

Compared with last year, very few graduates now have three or four job offers in hand, with the exception of those very remarkable students. Most students have just one or two offers, meaning they have little choice in today's financial climate, he observed.

(From left) Professor Francis Lui, Jacky Kwan, Matthew Cheung, Andrew Leung, Royce Yuen and Kathy Chan present their views at the Roundtable meeting on youth employment in Hong Kong.

(HK Edition 07/10/2009 page4)