Hong Kong health chief warns nurse shortage claims could deter recruits
Hong Kong’s health secretary has warned that exaggerated claims about nursing graduates being unable to find work could discourage future applicants and create staffing problems. Lo Chung-mau said recruitment figures contradicted broad claims of unemployment, while a nurses’ association continued to question employment prospects and overseas recruitment policies.
Hong Kong Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau has warned that overstated claims about nursing graduates’ employment prospects could discourage young people from entering the profession and create future staffing problems. Lo said the city would have to bear the consequences if inaccurate remarks affected recruitment next year or later. He was responding to a debate over whether newly graduated nurses were struggling to secure jobs.
The Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff has raised concerns about the outlook for graduates and previously called for a suspension of non-local nurse admissions through special or limited registration routes. Lo said the Hospital Authority had recruited 20 per cent more nurses over the past year and urged professional organisations to base their claims on data rather than isolated cases. He cited examples of graduates who were offered Hospital Authority positions but chose to take a gap year.
Lo said such cases should not be used to suggest that all nurses were unable to find employment. The health chief acknowledged that the public hospital system might not always provide a preferred position or working hours. He said the authority primarily served poor, acute, serious and critical patients, and urged nurses to recognise their responsibility to care for all patients.
The dispute followed a complaint by a psychiatric nurse to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu during a radio programme. The caller said nurses were finding it difficult to obtain work and attributed the problem to an alleged unwritten rule reserving some Hospital Authority recruitment quotas for mainland nurses. The caller later rejected a claim by Executive Council member Tommy Cheung Yu-yan that the complaint came from a labour union member.
The government said the Hospital Authority hired 95 per cent of local applicants for nursing positions in 2025. It also said only about 60 per cent of nursing graduates applied for public hospital jobs. The authority received 3,000 applications from newly graduated nurses this year and issued about 2,200 first-phase offer letters.
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