'HK staff enjoyed biggest pay rise among GBA workers'
A study by the Baptist University has found that workers in Hong Kong enjoyed an average pay hike of between 3.2 and 3.8 percent in the past year – the highest among Greater Bay Area cities.  The university’s Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development surveyed 292 companies – consisting of a total of 183,000 employees – in Hong Kong, Macau and several Guangdong cities between July 2022 to June 2023.  92 percent of the 87 Hong Kong firms surveyed reported an increment during the period, while the remaining few imposed a salary freeze.  “Basically Hong Kong has full employment… so it can support us for a competitive high pay increase,” the centre’s associate director, Felix Yip said. Meanwhile, companies surveyed in Macau reported a pay rise of between 1.9 and to 2.7 percent; and Guangdong firms offered their staff a hike of between 2 and 2.2 percent.  “The [difference] in increment of salary just reflects the difficulties of running business in the current situation in [mainland] China, especially the manufacturing sector has been suffering quite a lot because of Covid and [US-China] trade war,” the centre’s director, Huang Xu, said.  “But all of us think that in the next year there might be a significant increase in terms of economic activities, labour cost and salary increment on the mainland.” Going forward, the centre says Hong Kong firms are projecting an average pay hike of between 3.5 to 3.8 percent in the coming year.