Chief Secretary Eric Chan said the government plans to bring in 10,000 skilled technicians to ease the manpower shortage, adding that they hope to attract younger workers to bring down the average working age in the industry. Speaking on a radio programme on Saturday, he said that Hong Kong is projected to face a shortage of approximately 180,000 workers across different sectors in the future, with about 60,000 vacancies earmarked for skilled technicians. He stressed that the remaining 50,000 spots would be reserved for locals who are interested. "There are certain conditions for the people coming in. They must first have a licence, and secondly, they can only engage in their own industry when they come to Hong Kong. They cannot work in another field. This is the way to go," he said. "We hope to choose younger people because we hope that they can work for a long time, and we want to make the workforce younger. That is very important for our future." He added that labour importation schemes are short-term solutions, and that they would continue to train local workers to alleviate the problem in the coming years. Stated in the new Policy Address, the government will build a campus for the Hong Kong Institute of Information Technology, under the Vocational Training Council, and develop its Lift and Escalator Technology Centre. Chan said that both universities and the Vocational Training Council would also focus on the demand for high-tech talents, with institutions increasing incentives for research. "High technology plays a huge role in the development of our future, so whether it is in our universities, or through the Vocational Training Council, there will be courses catered to this type of demand. Even in our universities, we will add more scholarships for students to do some research and study for master's and doctoral degrees," he said. "It is mainly for the industries that we need. We will encourage them to do their best and provide them with more incentives to train and study in the future, and it's all towards high-tech development."
