People walk through Exchange Square on July 26, 2021 in the Central District of Hong Kong. A new survey by ECA International shows that Hong Kong saw a slight increase in expatriate pay packages last year, while dropping three places to rank as the eighth most expensive destination to send employees because of the city's stringent anti-pandemic measures.
Expatriate pay and benefits packages in Hong Kong rose by $3,800 in 2021 to $283,000, the lowest increase in Asia, ranking fifth in the region, according to the survey released Wednesday.
The pay and benefits packages for expatriate staff in Hong Kong recovered slightly in 2021 after a fall experienced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Lee Quane, regional director for Asia at the international expatriate management firm.
Pay packages for expatriates cover three main elements - cash salary, benefits such as accommodations, international schools, utilities and cars, and taxes. Cash salaries for expatriates in Hong Kong increased by 4.5 percent in US dollar terms last year, underperforming the 9 percent growth rate in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the survey.
Quane said that the decline in accommodation costs was associated with the decrease in cash compensation on overall employment costs in 2020.
The Chinese mainland is the location with the third-highest expatriate package in the region, after Japan and India.
Quane said cash salaries for expatriate employees increased by over 11 percent in 2021 in US dollars compared to the year before, despite the Chinese mainland's position in the rankings remaining unchanged.
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He said that the mainland continued to impose zero-COVID policy throughout the year, and may be partly due to the strength of the renminbi, but it may also be explained by companies needing higher salaries to attract and retain expatriate staff.
The cost of employing an expatriate in Singapore went up by about 10 percent to just under US $250,000 a year, with cash salaries seeing increases of about 9.5 percent in dollar terms.
The survey was conducted in the third quarter of last year. The findings were based on a poll of over 300 companies covering 160 countries and regions and over 10,000 expatriates.