Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau has rejected claims that local nursing graduates are leaving university without work, pointing to roughly 3,000 nursing vacancies at the Hospital Authority and saying a shortage of nurses remains in the public healthcare system.
The number of nursing graduates reported last year was about 4,000, but only around 2,500 applied for Hospital Authority positions.
Among the applicants, about 2,100 were seeking registered-nurse positions and had gone through interviews and assessments. The Hospital Authority hired 99% of them. More than 20 were not hired, with interview performance and other reasons given for those decisions.
He also rejected the claim that locally trained nurses were losing jobs to nurses trained elsewhere. Of about 30,000 nurses working for the Hospital Authority, he said, only 55 were not locally trained. Those nurses were helping to fill posts that had not attracted local recruits, rather than replacing existing staff.
Turnover among nurses in public hospitals had fallen over the past few years. Lo pointed to a range of possible career routes for graduates, including private hospitals and clinics, care homes, public institutions, administrative work and the civil service.
He said he would consider whether a better-pay-for-better-performance approach could provide a stronger incentive for young nurses to join the Hospital Authority.