Like Tree2502Likes

Who is leaving HK, Anecdotal Evidence - Part 2

Closed Thread
Page 62 of 107 FirstFirst ... 54 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 70 ... LastLast
  1. #611

    Join Date
    Aug 2019
    Posts
    638

    After Easter break, my older kid found out their class, ESF secondary, lost a third of the students. After school year ends, it will become more than that.
    My youngest’s school, ESF primary, just welcomed 28 new students. Not enough to replace the ones that left apparently, as now many have to share the younger buddy they are usually paired with with other classmates.
    The school now has a big banner outside by the entrance calling people to join. “All families welcome”. I noticed other ESF primaries put banners too. First time I see ESF needing to advertise.

    I feel sorry for the kids losing so many good friends at once, without even the possibility to say goodbye.
    I also wonder how ESF and the other international schools will cope with the lack of students. Maybe it will balance itself out with the lack of teachers? For sure now the competition among international schools will be fierce, as clear from a very long ESF survey to parents asking what are ESF’s strengths, what constitutes its brand, what shouldn’t change, what is better or worse than in the other international schools and which ones exactly are its main competitors.


    On a different note, the kids and I habitually go shopping to Flow books / Lily’s bookstore, a second hand bookstore that’s been in mid-level central for many years, often moving place to escape rent increases. Books there arrive all the time and they are chaotically arranged in flimsy piles up to the ceiling, a dusty, precarious maze that reaches its full potential in the summer months when most expats leave.
    Well, when we went last March, it was extraordinarily, comically full of books, like I’ve never seen it in all these years, summer included. The children room looked more like Scrooge Mc Duck’s vault.
    It was at the same time exhilarating and upsetting: it was great having that much choice but also painfully clear that something had changed for good in this city, and we were the ones left behind… scavenging!

    Here my little scavengers

    Name:  1043DA5F-B0F7-4FC4-92DE-791AACC00ECC.jpeg
Views: 1345
Size:  1,004.9 KB

    Name:  46C26EEB-DAEF-4DF9-961F-E1AEFDAFC4A2.jpeg
Views: 1350
Size:  1.12 MB

    Name:  3986E421-9EAA-48AC-BF8E-3AFE2250A016.jpeg
Views: 1345
Size:  1.09 MB


  2. #612

    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Location
    Beautiful Britain
    Posts
    2,089
    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    @Pauljoecoe à local friend of mine said she went to a going away party. I asked where the family was going - - Milton Keynes! I chuckled, because I don't have a high impression of it. They apparently also have never been, so I don't think they know what they're committing to. Apparently they sold their apartment, so can live a few years without working full time. What was important to them is to get the kids in a school. They chose MK because they had other friends who went there. Looking forward to see if this influx of middle class Hong Kongers can make MK more cosmopolitan! ...

    How funny they're going there...
    It's like those people who think Hong Kong is just Tower blocks and skyscrapers.

    Milton Keynes has a lot going for it. Lakes, woods, forests, excellent road system, lovely old villages and towns within its boundaries, History going back to the Romans. I live on Watling Street!! Nearly 2000 years old! Did you know the phrase 'a cock and bull story' originated in Milton Keynes where the original cock and bull pubs still exist?

    10 mins drive to lovely countryside. Excellent schools, 30 mins on a train to central london. Many big businesses have hq's here. I could go on. The fact that housing is getting very expensive here is testament to that. Easy to spend a million pounds on a 4 bed house here.

    On the Cosmopolitan front. The school I was in last week is 80% ethnic 'minorities' (It's white students who are the ethnic minority. It is also a very middle class school not an inner city poor school) A wide range of black, Asian, eastern European population. The school I used to work at was 60 % ethnic 'minorities' 20 years ago.

    Sorry for the off topic rant - I'm not a native Milton Keynesian by a long shot but the false stereotypes are just so annoying.
    Last edited by Pauljoecoe; 22-05-2022 at 02:49 PM.

  3. #613

    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Location
    Beautiful Britain
    Posts
    2,089
    Quote Originally Posted by David4Maths:
    It's the concrete cows Does it every time.
    🙄

  4. #614

    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Posts
    114

    I agree that MK is an under-rated city - the concrete can be off-putting, but there is a lot of greenery and it feels a lot cleaner than many parts of London. Transport to London is great and plenty places to eat, drink and shop, so I can't really see where so much criticism comes from.

    Saying that, I don't live there......


  5. #615

    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    Hong Kong / London
    Posts
    7,760

    Projected school figures at an intl school on my end. Loss of 200 students between September 2021 and April 2022. Projected to be down another 200 at the start of the next school year.

    Got a similar survey to what @Baklava said ESF were doing.


  6. #616

    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    θ–„ζ‰Άζž—
    Posts
    47,968

    In its 40-year existence, the past three years have been the busiest years on record for Silk Relo’s sister moving company, Asian Tigers, she said.

    “We cannot keep up with the capacity,” she said. “We don’t have enough people to serve what’s going on in the marketplace.”

    Families are transferring to Singapore, she said, but small- and medium-sized businesses are also on the move. Whereas one company executive might have left in the past, now “they’re all going,” she said. Small companies are “taking the entire team and putting them into Singapore.”

    Thousands of people are leaving Hong Kong, and now it's clear where they're going

    https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/peop...ndroidappshare
    ndt likes this.

  7. #617

    Join Date
    May 2021
    Posts
    1,733

    What i hear from people moving/planning to move, SG is still not fully realizing benefit of great HK Exodus keeping work permit policies tight with strong focus on local hire even for middle management role etc.. With local unemployment already running low, when and if the policy relaxes more with open arms, we might see actual exodus of SMEs in many sectors as well.. Someone with SG connection might verify this..


  8. #618

    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    Sai Kung
    Posts
    5,003
    Quote Originally Posted by ndt:
    What i hear from people moving/planning to move, SG is still not fully realizing benefit of great HK Exodus keeping work permit policies tight with strong focus on local hire even for middle management role etc.. With local unemployment already running low, when and if the policy relaxes more with open arms, we might see actual exodus of SMEs in many sectors as well.. Someone with SG connection might verify this..
    I know it’s tougher than ever to get work visa approved for SG but surely it’s different in this case where companies are moving and given it’s unlikely that 100 percent of staff would move with them that would definitely help local job market too

  9. #619

    Join Date
    Jun 2018
    Posts
    1,478

    Singapore MoM are quietly making it really fast and easy for high paid roles (SGD20k per month upwards, which is about HKD110k) with application to visa taking under two weeks in some cases. Below that it's not been impossible, but the local advertising requirements and documentation to show you've properly considered locals is pretty laborious and criteria for approval seem rather inconsistent based on a handful of people at that level we've tried to hire (only 1 from HK actually). Definitely not a case of just being able to up and move a whole department or team, even if they all wanted to do so.

    SG will have to liberalise soon... definitely seeing the same shortage at middle grade level as we have in HK, just for rather different reasons. I can see a decent BA costing 65k+ in this environment but let's not go there again

    GentleGeorge and ndt like this.

  10. #620

    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    Sai Kung
    Posts
    5,003
    Quote Originally Posted by Peaky:
    Singapore MoM are quietly making it really fast and easy for high paid roles (SGD20k per month upwards, which is about HKD110k) with application to visa taking under two weeks in some cases. Below that it's not been impossible, but the local advertising requirements and documentation to show you've properly considered locals is pretty laborious and criteria for approval seem rather inconsistent based on a handful of people at that level we've tried to hire (only 1 from HK actually). Definitely not a case of just being able to up and move a whole department or team, even if they all wanted to do so.

    SG will have to liberalise soon... definitely seeing the same shortage at middle grade level as we have in HK, just for rather different reasons. I can see a decent BA costing 65k+ in this environment but let's not go there again
    That seems to be for companies already established. Surely companies moving from HK will be welcomed with some but not all existing staff?

Closed Thread
Page 62 of 107 FirstFirst ... 54 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 70 ... LastLast