Salary increases this year are slightly lower than last year, according to a new report by Jobsdb.

The employment platform polled nearly 3,400 workers between February and March, and found that their average pay rise in 2024 was 3.2 percent. That's almost one percentage point lower than last year.

Employees in analytics had the biggest increase at 7.2 percent, followed by legal and compliance, and engineering at about five percent.

Workers in the design, retail sales and manufacturing sectors were at the bottom end with increments of less than one percent.

The managing director of Jobsdb by SEEK in Hong Kong, Bill Lee, said the lower pay rise should not be a concern.

“It is roughly within the range of salary increases in Hong Kong in the last ten years, and this number is also above inflation, which was roughly around two percent in March,” he said.

Lee noted that industries like hospitality and tourism had benefited from the rebounded in visitor numbers, and their staff had a better than average salary rise.

“We do see a significant improvement in the salary and benefits package within the hospitality and tourism job functions. Firstly, within this segment, there's an average increase of 4.2 percent," he said.

“And over 80 percent of those surveyed within this segment actually received salary increments, so that's a pretty positive outlook.”

Lee said that jobseekers, particularly those under 25, had shown more interest in working on the mainland which has become the second most popular destination after Australia for Hongkongers seeking work outside the city.

“The policies implemented by the Hong Kong government to encourage more integration with the Greater Bay Area are probably showing some results, increasing the awareness of young people looking to work in the GBA,” he said.