Hong Kong

3. Organisations Need to Play Their A-Game Amidst Renewed Challenges in Hiring and Retaining Top IT Talent

Amidst increasing brain drain, cut-throat competition, and rapidly evolving market dynamics, 97% of C-level executives and recruitment professionals are finding it challenging to hire top talent, with a whopping 75% of them finding it unmanageable within the professional services sector. This explains the pragmatic approach that most organisations are taking when it comes to managing their workforce, with 47% looking to maintain, 24% to increase, 17% to freeze, and 7% to cut headcounts this year. The need to balance the books and drive cost efficiencies triggered a series of layoffs across the local and global IT sector in the past two years, forcing organisations to maximise the output from their existing overly-stretched workforce. Driving large-scale digital transformation with limited resources and budget constraints is proving to be a daunting proposition.

Given the difficulties in hiring top talent across in-demand IT skillsets like AI, cybersecurity, big data analytics, and cloud computing, it is all the more imperative for organisations to focus on upskilling and retaining their existing workforce. Gauging the pulse of employees and being sensitive to their needs and priorities is key. Compensation packages, career progression, and work flexibility continue to be the top three drivers for job seekers, with 39% of employees considering job stability as their biggest non-monetary factor when deciding whether to switch jobs. Regardless of the organisational scale and sector, the ability to nurture, develop, and retain top talent will be a make-or-break factor.

4. The AI Era has Well and Truly Arrived and is Here to Stay for the Foreseeable Future

Hong Kong has firmly embraced the AI revolution, with nearly 90% of C-suite executives declaring that they have either already adopted or anticipate adopting AI tools in their organisations within the next three years. Gen AI, in particular, has gained significant prominence, with several organisations leveraging its range of use cases to boost employee productivity, reduce manual workloads, streamline operations, and elevate customer service. Concurrently, employees are looking to upskill themselves in utilising Gen AI tools to not only enhance their efficiency and performance at work but also to boost their employability and job competitiveness in an increasingly AI-powered future of work.

Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong’s banking and financial services sector has taken the lead in Gen AI adoption, with 75% of organisations designing or implementing at least one use case. This figure is expected to rise to 90% within the next three to five years. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has established a GenAI sandbox to promote responsible use among banks, focusing on risk management, fraud detection, and enhancing customer experience. As part of their flagship InnoHK initiative, the HKSAR Government is championing efforts to develop its own local AI model called HKGAI V1, powered by DeepSeek’s data learning model. In addition, they have committed  $3 billion to launch a transformative three-year AI Subsidy Scheme, empowering local institutions, R&D centres, and public sector institutions to fast-track their AI ambitions and drive innovation at scale. 

Hong Kong-based organisations are also exploring applications such as medical report drafting and AI-powered chatbots. With the proliferation of AI tools across sectors, mitigating implementation challenges and ensuring ethical, scalable, and sustainable AI adoption will continue to be mission-critical.