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Small pay rises for some Hong Kong workers but most face wage freeze or cuts, survey shows

  • Reality could be worse as annual survey does not reflect large number of workers on unpaid leave, agency boss says
  • Glimmer of hope if Covid-19 pandemic restrictions ease, but overall jobs outlook stays stagnant

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Hong Kong’s jobless rate reached a 17-year high of 7.2 per cent between last December and February this year. Photo: Felix Wong
Employees in Hong Kong have received the lowest average pay rises in more than a decade, according to a survey by a major jobs portal, and analysts predict salary adjustments will remain stagnant because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Average pay went up by just 0.4 per cent this year, the JobsDB survey of more than 4,200 full-time workers found. More than half had no pay rise, and about one in 10 took a wage cut.

“As many employers and firms in Hong Kong were more cautious about the economic outlook, they were relatively prudent in salary adjustments,” JobsDB chief executive Isaac Shao Kwan-shek said.

The annual survey, conducted in March and released on Monday, showed only about 34 per cent of employees received a rise over the past 12 months, 55 per cent reported a salary freeze, and the rest, 11 per cent, were hit with a pay cut.

Most people had a negative view of the employment outlook, a survey found. Photo: Winson Wong
Most people had a negative view of the employment outlook, a survey found. Photo: Winson Wong
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In 2020 and 2019, the survey found average pay rises of 1.3 and 5.1 per cent respectively. In 2008, when the survey started, average pay increases were at their highest at 8.7 per cent but dropped to 2.1 per cent the following year.

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