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| FEATURE: opportunities in motherland make HK people northbound |
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When Vivienne Wong got a job in a Hong Kong company's Beijing office as a public relations manager last year, she became an envy of her relatives and friends in Hong Kong.
Wong recalled that many of them told her they wanted to go north too and asked her how to get a job in the mainland.
This was rare for Hong Kong people in the 1980s, she said, adding that the hottest topic at that time was migration to overseas such as Canada, the United States and Australia.
"Overseas is out and northbound is in after Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, mainly due to the mainland's continuous economic development which provides more and more career opportunities," she said.
Wong is among some 200,000 Hong Kong people who work in the mainland, over 50 percent of them are in the Pearl River Delta and about 80 percent take management posts.
A newly released survey conducted by 51job.com, an integrated recruitment solution provider in China, showed over 50 percent of companies operating in the mainland have already employed Hong Kong people.
There are also 35 percent of the companies saying they plan to hire Hong Kong people, ranking the first, followed by Taiwanese and American.
The survey revealed that the reasons why Hong Kong people are on the top list include the proximity of Hong Kong and the Mainland, better understanding of the Mainland and better English than the Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Security Bureau of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government showed that the number of emigrants in year 2001 decreased for the seventh consecutive year to 10,600.
Ian Kwok, vice president of 51job is a northbound Hong Kong citizen too. He was glad to take his new post in 51job in 2000 as he knew the growing demand of human resources in the mainland and the northbound trend among Hong Kong people will give the company a bright future.
Before, Hong Kong people were "pushed" to work in the mainland and they were "compensated" with higher pay packages and more holidays, Kowk said.
"But things are changed," he added, "In recent years, Hong Kong people compete for job opportunities in mainland."
"From my own experience, I would say the mainland cities have developed rapidly and I have nothing to complain about the living conditions," he said.
In Kowk's vision, the economic integration between the mainland and Hong Kong is an inevitable trend. "It is a way for Hong Kong to go out of the economic difficulties," he said.
Meanwhile Hong Kong has the potential to act as a human resource center for mainland in some industries such as finance, management, property and legal services, he added.
The 51job itself is a successful example of Hong Kongers doing businesses and developing careers in the mainland.
Editor:Inner Wu
Source:Xinhuanet
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