Statistics from 2015 of the average monthly salaries of graduates from eight HK universities have been posted on a Facebook page
A discussion thread on a local Facebook page has revealed Hong Kong students are worried about the salaries they’ll be earning after graduating university. Statistics, from 2015, were posted on the Secrets page, on the average salary a graduate will make after leaving one of eight Hong Kong universities. Graduate salaries from Hong Kong University and Chinese University made from medical sciences and dentistry were excluded from the data as graduates from those degrees earn significantly more.
Education University came out on top in terms of how much a graduate makes on average, beating out top-ranking universities Hong Kong University and Chinese University. According to the Education University’s Student Affairs Office, the average monthly salary received by full-time graduates was HK$21,453.
Hong Kong University came second, with an average monthly salary of HK$19,201, followed by Chinese University on HK$18,712.City University came fourth in the list with an average monthly salary of HK$18,583and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came fifth on HK$18,040.
In sixth and seventh place respectively, Polytechnic University students received an average monthly income of HK$17,678 upon graduating, and Baptist University students earned HK$14,160.
Lingnan University placed eight with an average monthly salary of HK$13,435.
“We’re choosing subjects [to study] based on their average salaries,” wrote one user, who wasn’t impressed with what the salaries statistics revealed.
Another commenter questioned the credibility of the statistics. “As an Education University graduate, how could they say [the average monthly salary is] HK$20,000?” The user went on to point out graduates might be earning an average of HK$10,000-HK$12,000 for a few years before they’d be earning anything close to HK$21,453.
Hong Kong has a notoriously competitive job market and is an expensive city to live in, coming in as the second most costly city in 2016 according to a survey by London-based consultancy the Economist Intelligence Unit. Many university graduates struggle to find a job that pays well enough to allow them to live independent from their parents. According to statistics released in 2014 by resource website Social Indicators of Hong Kong, the unemployment rates of HK teenagers between 15-19 was 12.5 per cent. This is significantly higher than the overall HK unemployment rate in 2014 of 3.3 per cent, according to the Census and Statistics Department.