Deep Dive delves into hot issues in Hong Kong and mainland China. Our easy-to-read articles provide context to grasp what’s happening, while our questions help you craft informed responses. Check sample answers at the end of the page.
News: New graduates face tough outlook as Hong Kong’s job market declines
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Local job vacancies in 23 out of 33 sectors fell to the lowest in six years
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AI is taking over data entry and bookkeeping tasks, and even customer services
Hong Kong’s fresh graduates are facing increasingly challenging career prospects due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and a sluggish economy.
Figures from the Joint Institution Job Information System, a centralised online job information platform shared by the city’s eight publicly funded universities, also showed that the number of job vacancies fell to a five-year low of 30,798 last year, down by 51.5 per cent from 2021.
In 2025, 23 out of 33 job sectors – 69 per cent – recorded their lowest number of vacancies in six years.
Industries with fewer job openings were those heavily associated with the use of artificial intelligence. These include information technology and programming, customer service and administrative or clerical work.
Figures from the University Grants Committee showed 22,255 students completed an undergraduate degree in the 2024-25 academic year among the eight universities. The number is slightly lower than the 22,333 recorded in 2020-21, the year when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.
In terms of the overall number of graduates, 2024-25 recorded 29,676, while 2020-21 had 28,861.
Michael Chau is a professor in innovation and information management at the University of Hong Kong’s HKU Business School. He said AI was likely a contributing factor to the limited job opportunities for fresh graduates.
“Artificial intelligence can do more clerical work than before, and every industry always has some paperwork,” Chau said. He attributed part of the decline in programming jobs to the growing use of AI, which could generate code rapidly.
He also noted that there were macroeconomic challenges, as the economy had worsened during the pandemic.
Dylan Kwan works for the Hong Kong software start-up Wati. He is the general manager for the Greater China region.
The company provides a range of AI services to help businesses engage their customers on WhatsApp.
While the obvious victims of AI are jobs in data entry and bookkeeping, Kwan said customer support roles were also among those that would have to evolve.
He noted that his firm had seen the proportion of customer support tickets resolved by AI increase from 10 per cent to nearly 30 per cent throughout 2025.
“Up to 60 per cent of the customer support tickets are resolved by our AI for some of our customers, so we can see that there are efficiency improvements,” Kwan said.
Staff writers
Question prompts
1. Which of the following statements is false, according to the information in News?
(1) Figures from the Joint Institution Job Information System show that the overall number of job vacancies in Hong Kong hit a four-year low.
(2) The total number of students who completed an undergraduate degree in 2024-25 was higher than the year the pandemic began.
(3) AI is able to create code quickly, resulting in fewer job openings in computer programming.
(4) According to Kwan, roles involving data entry, bookkeeping, customer support and tourism are the obvious victims of AI.
A. (1), (2) only
B. (1), (4) only
C. (2), (3) only
D. (3), (4) only
2. According to Chau, list TWO reasons why there are fewer career opportunities for fresh university graduates.
3. Identify TWO jobs that are being affected by AI. Using News and your own knowledge, explain what puts them at risk and why they are being impacted.
Chart
Question prompts
1. Using the chart, note TWO observations about job vacancies in different sectors.
2. Why might different sectors have different job vacancy trends from 2020 to 2025? Explain using News, Glossary and your own knowledge.
Glossary
sluggish economy: a period of little to no economic growth, characterised by slow activity, low consumer spending and a lack of momentum
clerical work: the routine administrative and operational tasks required to maintain the daily functions of an office or organisation
macroeconomic challenges: systemic issues that affect economic stability, growth and development. These issues could include high inflation, unemployment, slow GDP growth and rising public debt.
Sample answers
News
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B
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According to Chau, the two reasons for fewer career opportunities for fresh university graduates are AI, which can handle and speed up clerical work that every industry requires and can even generate code quickly; and macroeconomic challenges caused by the pandemic, as the economy worsened during Covid-19.
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Two jobs affected by AI are data entry and customer service. Firstly, for data entry tasks, AI can handle more work and do it more quickly. For instance, AI can automatically process, organise, and input data using automation tools and machine learning. As data entry is repetitive and rule-based, AI systems can perform these tasks more efficiently and with fewer errors than humans, eventually reducing the number of human workers in this role. Customer-service positions are also affected because AI chatbots and automated customer-support systems can answer questions and resolve issues, putting these positions at risk. According to Kwan, AI resolved up to 60 per cent of customer support tickets for his company, reflecting how AI reduced the need for human staff and lowered demand for entry-level customer service jobs.
Chart
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The IT and programming sector had the largest decline in job vacancies among all sectors, falling from 8,251 in 2020 to 2,749 in 2025, which resulted in a total drop of 5,502 jobs. Second, the customer service sector fell sharply after peaking in 2023. Vacancies from the sector increased significantly from 5,737 in 2022 to 24,400 in 2023, yet fell dramatically to 1,720 in 2025. (accept all reasonable answers)
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Different sectors experienced different job-vacancy trends from 2020 to 2025, mainly due to AI development and economic changes following the pandemic. The advancement of AI has replaced some routine jobs across industries. AI tools can perform tasks such as clerical work, programming, data entry, and customer service. Specifically, AI can generate code efficiently for IT and programming, while AI chatbots can handle support tickets for customer service. This can reduce the need for human workers. Yet during and after the pandemic, businesses cut costs and slowed hiring due to the city’s sluggish economy. Industries such as banking, finance, and sales were affected by reduced business activity, and companies became more cautious about expanding their workforces. Therefore, the overall number of job offerings decreased. Technology and automation adoption across sectors also improve efficiency and reduce labour costs; therefore, more routine and repetitive jobs are easily replaced. Overall, sectors involving routine, repetitive, or administrative work underwent larger declines. (accept all reasonable answers)
