Jetro, Japan’s trade promotion organisation, conducted the most recent poll, from Jan 3 to Jan 7.
In it, 37% of 251 Japanese companies in Hong Kong noted it was more difficult to hire locally than it had been a year earlier.
And according to a survey for members of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Hong Kong, 53% answered they were “somewhat more likely to leave” or “more likely to leave” Hong Kong for personal reasons because of stringent travel restrictions.
In the Jetro survey, 21% of the Japanese companies polled noted a deterioration of business conditions in Hong Kong from a year earlier.
In answering another question, 5.2% said they intend to scale down, retreat from or review their operations in Hong Kong, 6.8% said they will expand their operations in the city and 57.4% said they will maintain the status quo.
Meanwhile, 51% of the respondents said they are worried about the national security law imposed on Hong Kong by China, down from 57% in the previous survey, conducted in July 2021.
Among reasons for worry, departing personnel was mentioned by 62%.
Asked about the actual effects of the law, 20 companies noted local hires had retired so they could move overseas.
Although Hong Kong has been lauded for having a large number of multilingual professionals, an increasing number of companies now feel the talent pool is becoming shallow.
There are reports that Japanese companies have offered large pay increases to retain competent locals.
Strict regulations introduced by Hong Kong to combat the pandemic are also hampering corporate hiring efforts.
As part of Hong Kong’s zero-Covid policy, passenger planes from countries such as the US and Britain have been banned.
Traffic between the city and mainland China is also restricted.
As a result, multinationals are struggling to deploy workers as planned.
In the AmCham survey, 60% of respondents regarded the international travel restrictions as the biggest challenge to doing business in Hong Kong.
The travel curbs have made 33% of corporate respondents likely to leave Hong Kong, according to the survey, which also found 53% of individual respondents were “somewhat more” or “more” likely to leave the international financial hub for personal reasons under the stringent travel restrictions.
Also in the AmCham survey, 46% pointed out a decrease in qualified staff in Hong Kong from a year earlier, while 40% mentioned an evaporating local talent pool.
Loss of talent was also mentioned by the largest portion of respondents to a survey of financial institutions by the financial services development council of Hong Kong.
“Given the additional impact of the pandemic, financial firms indicated that talent availability is a challenge needing to be urgently addressed for Hong Kong to continue to enjoy its position as a world-class international centre,” the council said, based on survey findings.