Why Hong Kong needs to keep tapping into overseas talent pools

Hong Kong's worsening talent gap and shortage of highly-skilled local professionals is driving employers to continue to look for overseas candidates. In our 2015 Hays Asia Salary Guide, 72% of employers in Hong Kong claimed they would consider sponsoring or employing a qualified overseas candidate. So what roles are employers considering overseas talent for?

According to feedback, the areas that employers find it difficult to recruit for, and are therefore more likely to consider overseas candidates for, include sales, engineering, IT, and technical roles at the junior to mid management level.

In engineering specifically, Hong Kong employers will sponsor skilled overseas candidates provided they have good management capabilities as well as client-facing and business development skills. They must also be able to lead and manage teams within consultancies.

Another area where employers are looking for overseas professionals is finance technology. Employers are specifically looking for business analysts and project managers since they only need English language skills.

However, most banks prefer not to provide visas; they prioritise residents based in Hong Kong, followed by overseas candidates who have working rights in Hong Kong, then moving people internally from other offices. Their last resort is to consider expats.

In general, in skill-short areas job opportunities are available for expatriates. Technical skills, experience, and qualifications are the main priorities for employers when hiring foreign workers. Due to Hong Kong labour laws, employers have to demonstrate their requirement for an overseas candidate based on the particular skill set.

While overseas talent is still considered for skills in short supply locally, employers demonstrate a strong preference for a candidate already based in Asia.

In general, the cost of recruiting an expat from Europe or The United States exceeds the cost of recruiting a candidate from a neighbouring Asian country, although it does depend on the relocation package on offer such as flights, allowance, housing, visas, and health insurance. Therefore, employers prefer candidates who are on the ground in Asia.

Such candidates also have Asian language skills, cultural understanding, and Asian work experience. These 'soft skills' also help to explain why employers are wary of a candidate who has yet to commit to living in Asia, since cultural understanding, adaptability, stability, and bilingual skills all help smooth the transition for the new employee and increase productivity for the business.

Other key considerations include what expatriates can bring to the organisation. For example, normally expats will bring across overseas knowledge and management skills that are not common among local candidates.

It's for this reason that qualified overseas returnees are highly sought after in skill-short areas when a suitable local candidate cannot be sourced. These candidates have the dual advantage of not requiring an expatriate package and already possessing an understanding of the local culture and business behaviour.

These candidates are even more highly valued than Western expatriates since they combine their Westernised way of thinking and experience of how business is done overseas with local cultural understanding.

As long as employers in Hong Kong face a talent shortage, they will continue to need to tap into overseas talent pools. They will also need to future-proof their workforce amid the growing globalisation of the jobs market.