A job market mismatch, shrinking demand for junior roles, and relatively comfortable family living conditions have driven up Hong Kong’s share of young people who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET) compared to regional peers, observers have warned.
Their comments on Friday followed government figures released in response to lawmaker Elvin Lee Ka-kui, showing the city’s NEET rate at 6 per cent. A Legislative Council report last month put the 2025 figure slightly higher at 6.3 per cent – nearly double the overall unemployment rate.
“It’s not an individual issue. If more jobs are replaced because of a lack of competitiveness, it would further affect youth employment, which could have a knock-on effect on the upward mobility of society,” lawmaker Elvin Lee Ka-kui warned during a radio programme.
Data from the Census and Statistics Department showed that between 2023 and 2025, the number of youngsters aged 15 to 24 who were NEETs fluctuated between 33,700 and 36,100, accounting for 5.7 to 6 per cent of their total demographic.
The figures were released on Wednesday in response to a question from Lee at a Legco meeting.
“A review of past data shows that even in years when the economy was booming and labour demand in the job market was high, the proportion of young people in Hong Kong classified as ‘NEETs’ mostly hovered between 6 per cent and 7 per cent,” Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said in his written reply.
Sun explained that local youth often took longer to explore career paths and secure suitable roles, which frequently resulted in extended periods of unemployment.
Roy Ying Fai, co-chair of a research committee at the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management, said one reason for the city’s relatively high NEET rate, compared with Singapore and Japan, was a mismatch between jobs and talent.
“It’s not that many industries are not hiring, but they couldn’t attract people as they might lack a clear career ladder such as those in the F&B [food and beverage], construction, and renovation sectors. While the pay is not bad, they [young people] might not consider joining,” Ying said.
According to the Singapore government, the city state’s NEET rate stood at 4.1 per cent in 2024, while an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report put Japan’s rate at 3.7 per cent in 2023.
“Employers tend to prefer staff members with experience who could hit the ground running in the current economic climate without the need to invest in training fresh graduates,” Ying said, adding that mandatory internships before graduation could help address the issue.
To attract younger talent, he suggested that businesses must establish clear career progression pathways backed by relevant training.
Ying also pointed out that financial stability played a major role, as many young people faced little urgency to find immediate employment because their families did not financially depend on them.
Furthermore, some students enrolled in university subjects they did not enjoy simply because they had yet to identify their true professional interests, he said.
Both Lee and Ying called on the government to expand training opportunities, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI), and to review existing youth support schemes to address emerging structural issues in the labour market over the long term.
Ying urged students to manage their expectations and remain open to opportunities, noting that every experience could improve employability.
Lee warned that the shrinking number of entry-level positions could have wider societal implications.
He also proposed extending a subsidy scheme – under which employers who hire students with associate degrees receive HK$5,000 (US$638) – from six months to one year.
Lee said the scheme could also be expanded to cover more industries, including the eight key development areas identified for Hong Kong under Beijing’s national plan.
Sid Sibal, managing director at Aster Recruiting, said that although Hong Kong’s NEET rate was higher, the gap was only a few percentage points and should not be seen as significant, adding that the city’s economy was high-value but narrowly focused on finance, property and professional services.
“There simply aren’t as many entry-level ‘first rungs’ as there are in Singapore, which intentionally preserved its manufacturing, tech and logistics sectors, or Japan, which utilises a massive industrial base and a highly structured graduate-hiring system that funnels nearly every school leaver straight into a firm,” Sibal said.
He described the core roadblock as an “experience paradox”.
“From a recruitment perspective, the biggest blocker is the experience paradox,” he said. “Employers want experience even for entry roles, and AI is now doing exactly the junior work that used to be how young people earned it. That first rung is quietly disappearing.”
He stressed that training alone would not solve the issue and that greater emphasis should be placed on stimulating demand, including “proper apprenticeships and structured graduate intake co-designed with employers, rather than modest allowances”.
“Singapore’s Polytechnic and SkillsFuture models are good benchmarks – well-funded, well-regarded and tightly linked to actual jobs,” he said.