Expatriates and seconded professionals are turning their backs on Hong Kong, once the go-to destination for Australian administrative staff seeking to cement ties in Asia, in the wake of its strict COVID-19 restrictions and civil unrest.
Even as the city slowly emerges from COVID-19 restrictions — shedding hotel quarantine requirements last week — recruiters said accountants, experts and techies are in Singapore to have fun in Asian markets.
Samantha Fisher puts more recruits in Singapore than in Hong Kong. Pierre Rae
This marks a sea change for the professional sector, which has traditionally touted Hong Kong paints as a gateway to global markets for Australians and aggressively markets its secondment features to new recruits.
“If you go back 10 years, Hong Kong is the apparent selection [for Australian expats]: it’s the economic strength of the region, it’s close, there’s greater political and social stability, and the paintings are also [attractive],” said Noel Rowland, a spouse at recruitment firm Brown.
“But that has been fundamentally repositioned now because of the economic environment, political instability, social unrest, fitness issues and the pandemic. Now it is not the position in which other people look.
He said Australian professionals, and especially younger ones, appreciated the need to win paint in Asia, but that “Singapore is now more valued and sought after. “
“Geographically, we’re right in the middle of Asia and that’s where our long-term lies. Young professionals know this, they are only for places other than Hong Kong. “
Young professionals also had “many characteristics to choose from” for transitional or permanent roles given the global skills shortage, he added. Rowland, while remote jobs also meant they could simply take on “regional roles from home. “
Samantha Fisher, senior representative of recruitment giant Charterhouse, also said Singapore is the destination of choice for young Australian professionals looking to have fun in Asia.
“Hong Kong has fallen out of favor as a job, either permanently or on commission; This is largely due to macroeconomic and political aspects,” he said.
These points come with China’s serious reaction to COVID-19 and a “general point of unease around what many believe is Chinese interference in Hong Kong citizens,” especially given the protests in the city since 2019.
“This is further complicated by the fact that Hong Kong is necessarily considered the de facto hub of the Asia-Pacific,” he said.
“This highlight is shared with Singapore; a country that has political stability, that has behaved well with its reaction to COVID-19 and where, in general, the life of expats is greater in general.
This meant Australians could have the same fun “in an environment that, by any measure, is particularly better” in exchange for a “relatively small difference in flight times. “
But David Jones, senior managing director for Asia-Pacific at recruitment firm Robert Half, expected foreigners to return to Hong Kong now that COVID-19 restrictions had eased.
“This is our year, the one that most people would think wouldn’t happen given what happened in Hong Kong in recent years,” he said.
This was partly because so many foreign professionals had fled Hong Kong because of the pandemic and employers now had to update them, and because positions were already filling up in Singapore and the Middle East.
Jones said the call from accountants and tech professionals to move to Hong Kong was still “slow and slow” but he hoped it would recover for financial staff.
“Things have changed so much when it comes to COVID isolation rules, so what happens then?How long does it take for the dynamism to return to Hong Kong?
“Because it starts from such a low base, will it be quickly boosted?I suppose a new generation of foreigners will arrive. . . But it’s too early to tell. “
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