Check out which industry has strongest plans to axe employees

Headcount reduction plot edged up to 16.4%.

According to a survey of permanent hiring expectations by Hudson, IT&T is the only industry with increased positive hiring intentions which are up 11.3pp to 62.5%. 41.7% of Consumer businesses have positive hiring intentions, although this is down 7.7pp.

More than a third (37.9%) of Manufacturing & Industrial employers expect to increase their workforce, down 10.8pp. Over a quarter (27.3%) of Banking & Financial Services employers expect to increase their headcount and they have the strongest intentions to decrease headcount at 16.4%.

Hiring in IT&T is being driven by demand from businesses seeking to improve both efficiency and profitability via technology. Restrictions around permanent hiring among some MNCs is resulting in increased demand for vendor services and there is an continuing trend towards the outsourcing of core IT functions.

Big data and the technology associated with manipulating multiple data to support decision making and improved customer relationships also continues to grow in popularity.

Here's more from Hudson:

The Consumer sector continues to show good hiring activity, although while more mainland visitors are visiting Hong Kong than a year ago, they aren’t buying as much.5 Retail sales grew just 3.6% year-on-year compared with 15% a year ago.

Worst hit was the luxury sector, although retail rents are stabilising in most prime shopping areas.

While the local economy remains fairly robust the Banking & Financial Services sector has the greatest exposure to international trends. Several rounds of local lay-offs at international banks have resulted in hundreds of job losses. Behind these staff cuts are weak financial markets, including a downturn in new listings on the Hong Kong stock exchange, and low turnover.7 The accountancy sector, which has recruited aggressively in recent years, is expected to remain flat next year due to fewer initial public offerings