Hong Kong is well-known for conveying an important message : money! And you must have it not for living comfortably, but living humanely.
Hong Kong is a city well-known for its poor respect and compensation to I.T. personnel, unless you are the exceptional and lucky few who made it to the investment banks. Otherwise, you are probably in demise. Can we go elsewhere?
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Historically, artists cluster to Florence 500 years ago, Shanghai businessmen cluster to Hong Kong at the early 20th century. Until the contemporary, I.T. personnel goes to Silicon Valley, and still a lot of business personnel goes to Hong Kong. Apparently, a lot of people are leaving their hometowns for opportunities, and Hong Kong is considered one of the place of opportunities. This can be testified by its foreign investments and international reputation and fame, and also its cultural diversity that sprouted over the century.
It is common for mainlanders in China to move to Beijing and Shanghai from afar, living their homeland, to look for opportunities. Now, if foreigners have come to Hong Kong for opportunities and mainlanders moved to Bejing and Shanghai for opportunities, apply the same case to local I.T. personnel, why they do not explore elsewhere out of Hong Kong?
Put aside family matters. Let’s talk about the two main incentives for a job : money and fun. Without money, and if you have none originally, however fun, it will not be attractive. Without fun, the capable people who got the money will not even consider the job. However, being a year in Shanghai I can tell you that there are fun jobs in Shanghai and Beijing. So, we will rule out the problem of fun.
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Money, the root of all evil.
Apparently, money matters. The average monthly salary in China of an I.T. undergraduate of a local firm is only about CNY $3000~$4000, which is the same as a decade ago. The rest is mathematics. It is then obvious why Hong Kong I.T. personnel would most likely refuse to go to China, because the compensation is inhumane to their standards. If you were to pick between a job of HKD $12000 and CNY $4000, which would you pick?
Think deeply. Tax in China is higher than that in Hong Kong, and then you have to rent a house and all the daily consumptions and such. Lastly, add to the fact some friends of yours doing a similar job in Hong Kong earning a triple of your monthly salary, and he might still stick to his home and save the daily consumptions, and then also pay less of the tax though he gets a better salary. Lastly, bonus information for you, the living standards in Shanghai surpasses than of Hong Kong. Will you still pick the job in China?
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Over the other facet of the planet, we have United Kingdom and United States, which are both good places for I.T. personnel to hang out at. Yet, both of them do not offer easy entry. Both of them require the employer to demonstrate that the applicant for the job is not available in their country, and even companies such as Microsoft and Google that big are not exempted from the rules.
Moreover, getting a job in other cities and countries is not just a click to submit resume and the employer saying okay. From the perspective of the employer, why hire a foreigner for all the hassle and could even introduce communication problems? You certainly must have a strong reason to justify yourself.
Now, remember you are a fresh undergraduate or just a few years of experience. If you have some really outstanding special abilities, that works. But that seems unlikely for most people. Remember, this is only one of those tough obstacles to hurdle over.
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Now, you are left with very few choices : Build your own company, strive to get into some investment bank, or pray for the luck so you get escorted to the foreign lands. For the first, it is definitely not easy. For the second, this is our primary assumption you cannot get into one, right? Lastly, this is hoping you got into a company who can sent you afar, if not into China.
Can we go elsewhere? Yes, but certainly not as easy as suggested, due to differences in compensation and the entry bar for the prospective countries. And if this path is such a difficult one, it is most likely barred from the commoners, and even above average.
It is not just that you want to go elsewhere, then you can get out. Heard of a spelling P-R-I-S-O-N?
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