In Depth: Mainlanders Flood Hong Kong Talent Program
A Hong Kong talent recruitment initiative aimed to address the city’s shortage of high-skilled workers has gained popularity among mainlanders, who are drawn to the city for its job opportunities and social welfare benefits such as access to better education for their children.
However, many successful mainland applicants see the scheme as a hard path to permanent residence due to its strict criteria for an extension that assesses applicants’ economic contribution to the city. Moreover, a lack of job supply that matches visa holders’ expertise has led some individuals who previously held middle-management positions at large companies to work in roles with relatively lower entry barriers such as selling insurance.
The Top Talent Pass Scheme, (TTPS) launched by the Hong Kong government in late 2022, grants successful applicants an initial two-year visa to work or establish a business in the city. The scheme targets professionals with rich work experience and good academic qualifications from the global top 100 universities.
To be eligible for the scheme, applicants must qualify under at least one of three categories: high-income talent, which are individuals earning HK$2.5 million ($321,200) equivalent annually in the year before applying; degree holders from eligible universities with at least three years of work experience in the last five years; and degree holders who graduated from eligible universities in the past five years with less than three years of experience. The third category excludes non-local students who obtained an undergraduate degree from a university in Hong Kong.
TTPS is a key initiative by the Hong Kong government aimed at addressing the city’s shrinking workforce and revitalizing its economy. As part of broader efforts to spur economic growth and restore its reputation as a global hub for top-tier talent, talent recruitment has become a central agenda item for Hong Kong. The city’s labor force contracted by approximately 140,000 people in the two years leading up to mid-2022, as noted in Chief Executive John Lee’s maiden policy address. Of these, roughly two-thirds were highly skilled workers, according to government reports.
Excluding foreign domestic helpers, the local workforce was about 3.43 million by the end of the second quarter of 2022, with a significant decline in the youth demographic. The most noticeable decrease occurred in the 25-39 age group, government figures showed.
As Hong Kong’s economy recovers from the pandemic, talent is returning, while the city’s talent recruitment policies are working well to attract mainland-based talent. By the end of 2023, the city’s labor force had risen to 3.5 million.
The government expanded the scheme this October with measures including adding 13 top universities, including nine on the mainland, to the eligible university list, bringing the total to 198. Meanwhile, it extended the validity of the first visa for high-income talent under the scheme from two to three years.
Since the implementation of the TTPS, the Hong Kong government has approved approximately 21,000 applications under the high-income talent category, according to Chris Sun Yuk-han, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Labor and Welfare. Talent in the high-income category are usually people who are sought after worldwide, including senior executives of large companies, Sun said. If Hong Kong can attract them, they will bring some of their business operations to the city, he added.
Mainland interest
The scheme sparked immediate interest, receiving around 2,600 applications within a week of its launch. Since its launch in 2022, more than 100,000 had applied with 81,000 being approved as of this September. Over 90% of applications were from the Chinese mainland.
Among the approved, 66,000 have entered Hong Kong to activate their visas, along with 74,000 dependents — an applicant’s spouse and children — who can enjoy the same educational and health care benefits as local residents.
One of the key factors that have prompted many mainland individuals to seek to move to Hong Kong is to help their children escape from the intense competition in education, according to sources Caixin spoke to. Mainland Chinese expect the special administration region will provide their children with better access to high-quality education, such as top-ranked universities in the U.S. or the U.K.
Meanwhile, they also have the option to enter some prestigious universities on the mainland, such as Tsinghua University and Peking University, at a lower entry threshold through the Joint Entrance Examination, which is an exam for students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to gain admission to mainland universities. It is generally viewed as an easier alternative to the gaokao — the notoriously difficult national college entrance exam that is taken by students on the mainland.
Children of TTPS visa holders can enroll in Hong Kong public schools as local students, which is a common practice among most of those granted the visa.
Although there are other talent recruitment schemes such as the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS), introduced in 2006, the TTPS is favored mainly for its high efficiency and clear thresholds in the application process, according to legislative officials. The TTPS visa is typically granted within four weeks, compared with a period ranging from six to nine months via QMAS.
While other talent schemes adopt a selection system — a more competitive process where the best candidates are selected from a pool of applicants — the TTPS uses a threshold system, Shang Hailong, a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong for Election Committee constituency told Caixin. In a threshold system, applicants are required to meet a basic set of predefined standards or criteria and will be eligible to apply as long as they meet the minimum requirements without further subjective selection process.
By setting clear criteria, it can significantly improve the Immigration Department’s review efficiency, making Hong Kong more competitive in terms of drawing in talent, Shang said. “The new policy allows applicants to come to Hong Kong even without having a job in advance … letting the market choose who can stay,” the official said.
Relaxed entry, strict renewal
While the TTPS provides a more flexible pathway for talent to move to Hong Kong, newcomers still face strict requirements in extending their visas and ultimately obtaining permanent residency.
To qualify for permanent residence in Hong Kong requires living in the city for a minimum of seven consecutive years. That means TTPS applicants would need to renew their visas at least twice to meet the requirements.
Generally speaking, applicants are required to have secured employment in Hong Kong with a stable income, and their salary and benefits must meet the level enjoyed by a typical degree holder or a person with good professional qualifications. Applicants need to submit an employment contract, according to a November document released by the city’s Immigration Department.
If the applicant is engaged in flexible employment, such as an insurance broker whose main income comes from commissions, the renewal application review will consider factors such as previous income levels, the benefits brought by the work, including taxes paid, and the duration of the applicant’s stay in Hong Kong.
For those who established their own business, they must prove that the business is operational in Hong Kong and has generated economic benefits such as annual turnover, financial resources and number of jobs created locally, set out the document.
The TTPS adopts a “relaxed entry, strict renewal” strategy, according to Shang. This strategy has posed challenges for some TTPS visa holders, especially those who chose to continue their jobs on the mainland while trying to maintain their visa by taking flexible jobs in Hong Kong, such as in insurance brokerage.
Yu Xiaodong, who is among the first cohort granted a TTPS visa, has been working as a part-time insurance agent in Hong Kong. He told Caixin that the insurance company required him to generate HK$260,000 in premiums in his first year in order to maintain his contract, which he needs for his TTPS visa renewal.
Yu leads a team of about 10, who are all on the TTPS visa. He predicted that roughly half of his team may not meet the renewal requirement.
Yung Wing-ching, assistant director for visa and policies at the Immigration Department said, “If someone views Hong Kong as a stepping stone rather than truly interested in developing here, they will not be granted a visa renewal.” In other words, applicants who work on the mainland while working part-time as insurance agents in Hong Kong with limited business, are unlikely to get a renewal.
Notably, according to Shang, each individual can only apply for the TTPS once whether it’s through the path of academic qualifications or annual income. If the visa is revoked, applicants cannot use the scheme to reapply for Hong Kong status. “Applicants need to make careful decisions and assess how well they fit with (the needs in) Hong Kong. This is a mechanism for mutual selection between Hong Kong and the applicants,” Shang noted.
Job market mismatch
Matching their expertise with the needs of the city is another challenge facing TTPS applicants. Many candidates looking for middle-managerial roles have seen a shortage in those positions available in the city while opportunities in the medical and internet sectors are particularly limited, according to people Caixin spoke to. Renowned as an international financial hub, open positions are usually concentrated in finance, insurance and law, they said.
However, finding a job in finance could be challenging. Li Jinjiang, who works in the human resources department of a mainland-backed company in Hong Kong, said as the overall financial sector underperforms at the moment, amid a large influx of new talent into Hong Kong, it is difficult for companies to keep up pace with the increasing job demands, and some have even experienced layoffs, Li said.
As Hong Kong sees its population aging at a faster pace coupled and a portion of its young residents having immigrated overseas during the pandemic, the city needs more young talent, Wang Jixian, research director of the think tank Bay Area Hong Kong Center, told Caixin.
The TTPS, which has a more streamlined application process, can indeed attract many talented individuals, but it remains to be seen whether their expertise will align with Hong Kong’s needs, according to Wang.
Yu Xiaodong is a pseudonym.
Contact reporter Qing Na (qingna@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.
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