Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dipped to 3.8 per cent over the past three months, the first drop since mid-2023, with authorities crediting the decline to steady improvements in business sentiment and a gradual recovery in consumer confidence.
But economists said it was too early to conclude that the jobless rate had peaked. They said that the improvement was driven by an influx of mainland Chinese tourists over the National Day “golden week” holidays and the lead-up to the year-end peak season for retailers and the catering sector.
Preliminary data released by the Census and Statistics Department on Tuesday showed that the jobless rate for the August to October period decreased by 0.1 percentage point compared with the July to September figure.
This marked the first drop in the unemployment rate in 27 months, when it fell 0.2 percentage points between April to June and May to July of 2023.
But the city’s jobless rate still stood at the second-highest point since the period between July and September 2022, when it was 4 per cent.
The jobless rate between July and September was 3.9 per cent, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous three-month period.