Retaining talent crucial for emerging industries: researcher

Macau should strive to retain its talent while attracting more non-resident talent to the region, Lau Veng Seng, convener of Human Resources Policy Research Group of the Economic Development Committee said yesterday.
“The government should make policies to retain talent in Macau, making Macau more attractive to talent,” Lau advanced, “so that they will be willing to stay and contribute to our emerging industries.”
The emerging industries Lau mentioned were traditional Chinese medicine and financial services.
Lau said that the city should try to institutionalize career planning. For example, people should be educated about the city and the country when they are young, so they can make early plans for their career development and choose the corresponding major at university.
Internship opportunities should also be given to interested students, providing them with hands-on experience in emerging industries.
Attracting talent from outside of Macau is also important, according to Lau. In his opinion, it will speed up the growth of local talent.
“The government should also institutionalize talent absorption,” Lau explained. “They will take managerial positions to educate local talents to support the development of the emerging industries.”
On the other hand, in one of the Research Group’s previous meetings, director of the Labour Affairs Bureau, Wong Chi Hung, sat in and introduced the non-resident labor market amid the pandemic. He also presented a progress update on subsidized training programs and employment for graduates this year.
“We are happy that the government could provide these programs, even with the pandemic,” Lau said. “Human resources in Macau are scarce, let alone the resource of high-caliber talents. We have looked into [which] industries have seen weaker impact on their employment or what will likely survive this tough economic time.”
“Currently, we hope the government will provide more resources to offer better training to our labor force, including improving their vocational or professional skills,” he said. “Besides improving their skills at their current jobs, we believe our labor force should embrace training in other industries deemed by the government to count as economic diversity.”
The subsidized training program is solely operated by the DSAL. Training programs offered by other public or semi-public entities, such as the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies, the University of Macau, or the Macao Productivity and Technology Transfer Centre will not be subsidized.