In 2021, the HKSAR Government (hereafter the Government) launched the “Greater Bay Area Youth Employment Scheme” (hereafter the Scheme) to encourage enterprises with operations in both Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (hereafter the GBA) to recruit and deploy local university / tertiary institution graduates to work in the Mainland cities of the GBA. As of early 2023, all employees should have completed the pilot Scheme.

To assess the effectiveness of the Scheme, MWYO and the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce launched a longitudinal research study in four phases. Online surveys were conducted in May 2023 for phase 4. For the in-depth interviews, we selected suitable employees who had stated their acceptance to be interviewed in the phase 4 questionnaire, while some interviewees were contacted by referral. The survey findings were based on 72 employees who had returned the phase 4 questionnaire. The number of respondents was estimated to be 12.7% of the total number of employees who successfully completed the Scheme.

Key Research Findings:

1. Over 80% of the respondents were successfully employed after the completion of the Scheme. Most of them (61.1%) accepted new employment contracts from the same companies under the Scheme and some (22.2%) were employed by other companies.
2. Nearly half of the respondents who were employed by the same companies (55.3%) or employed by other companies (42.9%) had job duties related to the GBA business.
3. A great majority of respondents reported that their monthly salary upon the completion of the Scheme were over HKD18,000 (90.5% for those who accepted new employment contracts from the same companies and 81.3% for those who were employed by other companies) and the salary of about half of them were over HKD22,000 (47.7% and 50.0% respectively). It proves that they have good career development after completing the Scheme.
4. The salary discrepancy between Hong Kong and the Mainland cities would affect the employees’ intention to go back to Hong Kong to work. A larger proportion of respondents with employers who had at least one of their offices located in the Mainland received a monthly salary of HKD18,000 or below after completing the Scheme (33.3%) as compared with those respondents with employers who had their offices located in Hong Kong only (2.5%) and it shows statistical significance.
5. More employees studying humanities are seeking jobs: A larger proportion of employees studying Humanities (66.7%) are seeking jobs, while those studying Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Electronic Engineering (20.0%), Science, Engineering and Health Care (20.0%), and Accounting/Finance (16.7%) are less likely to be seeking jobs; and all employees studying Business Administration and Social Sciences are able to find jobs. The Government should pay more attention to the employment problems of employees gratuating from different disciplines.

Observations and Recommendations:

1. The Scheme is beneficial to both employees and employers.

2. As employees have broadened their horizons and gained more experience, they will have more choices in their career development.

3. The employers can have better manpower planning and continue to recruit suitable talents through the Scheme.

4. We recommend that the Government should conduct ongoing research and impact assessment of the scheme and the relevant data should be published for public use regularly such as the effects of the regularisation of the Scheme, the considerations of employers who continue, withdraw or newly join the Scheme, the changes after the relaxation of the anti-epidemic measures, the impacts after the increase of preferential policies and supporting measures, and the changes in the backgrounds of the employees participating in the regularised Scheme, etc.