Meaningless: fewer Hong Kong employers resorting to inflated job titles to attract talent, survey finds
- Less than 30 per cent of Hong Kong businesses use senior job titles to attract talent, though 60 per cent of young workers expect rapid promotions: Robert Walters poll
- Experts say the trend is mostly limited to digital businesses and client-facing roles
Hong Kong businesses are realising that job inflation – offering employees grandiose job titles, often without the experience or pay to match – has diminishing returns, according to a survey by recruitment specialist Robert Walters.
Less than 30 per cent of companies are relying on senior titles to attract or retain talent this year, having found the tactic to have limited success, according to the study, which polled about 3,300 Hong Kong employers and employees in March on LinkedIn.
“Inflated job titles used to be a tool used by weaker companies who struggled to retain staff,” said John Mullally, managing director of Robert Walters Hong Kong, on Thursday. He attributed the trend to the local job market being disrupted by a hiring boom and talent crunch in 2021 and 2022, leading to firms adding more titles rather than focusing on career growth.
But the job market has been weak this year, with hiring in the property and financial sectors hit by the economic slowdown in China. Vacancies in financial services, professional services and technology firms plummeted 35 to 38 per cent year on year in 2023, according to a report released in January by Hudson, another professional recruitment firm.
Leading banks such as UBS, Morgan Stanley, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have made unprecedented cuts to their investment banking teams in Hong Kong due to a slowdown in mergers and acquisitions and a dearth of initial public offerings.
