HK business plan on 3% salary increase in 2022

Hong Kong businesses are planning to increase the salary of their employees by up to 3% next year, while fresh graduates who are planning to join the marketing industry will earn about HK$15,000 a month, according to the 2021 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Pay and Benefits Survey.

The survey, which received 302 completed questionnaires, was conducted by the Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development of School of Business of Hong Kong Baptist University, Research Center for Human Resources Management of School of Business Administration of South China University of Technology, Hong Kong People Management Association and Talent Development and Management Association of Guangdong, covering 224,000 employees across Hong Kong, Macau and the Guangdong Province. The salary adjustment forecast for 2022 in Hong Kong, as reported by 88 participating organisations in Hong Kong, will range from 1.9% to 2.4%. Among these businesses, 17 of them said they are planning not to increase their employees' salary. The overall salary increase forecast for the remaining 71 organisations will range from 2.6% to 3.0%.

The overall ranking of salary review criteria was similar to those of last year, with “Organisation’s overall performance” ranking at the top for all levels of staff, followed by “Individual performance”.

Meanwhile, 93 out of the 94 participating Hong Kong organisations provided data for the overall actual salary increases analysis, it ranged from 1.3% to 2.1% for the period from July 2020 to June 2021. Of the 93 organisations that provided data for analysis, 28 reported salary freezes. The overall actual salary increases for the remaining 65 organisations ranged from 2.7% to 3.2%.

The report also examined the average starting monthly salary of various industries in 2021. A job seeker looking for a position in the marketing industry with a bachelor's degree can earn about HK$14,819, while a person who has a master's degree or above can earn about HK$15,317.

Hong Kong's unemployment rate was as high as 7.2% for the period between December 2020 and February 2021. The survey also asked whether the businesses had laid off their employees. Among 94 participating organisations in Hong Kong, 44 organisations had reported redundancy, which represented 46.8% of surveyed organisations. A total of 755 employees were made redundant, the main reason was “restructuring”. The real estate and property management sector retrenched the largest number of employees, accounting for 56% of the total retrenched population (423 out of 755). The engineering sector was reported 142 employees retrenched, accounting for 18.8% of the total retrenched population. By company size, large size organisations retrenched the largest number of employees (478), accounting for 63.3% of the total retrenched population.

Lastly, a total of 2,389 additional headcounts were created by 42 responding organisations during the survey period. 842 of which were the general staff. The logistics and transportation sector created 29.3% (701) of the total headcounts reported. In terms of the size of organisations, large size companies as a whole created the largest number of additional headcounts mainly were the general staff.

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