Considerations before Employing Foreign Nationals in your Hong Kong Company

The procedure for employing foreign nationals in a company operating in Hong Kong is fairly simple and the laws are very clear regarding the rules and regulations. Basically whenever a company needs to employ a foreigner for whatever reason, they need to endorse a professional work permit application for each of the overseas professionals they plan to employ. However, before proceeding with the work permit application and looking overseas, companies must consider a number of points to ensure that the authorities would not reject the employment application.

One of the most important points to consider is whether it was absolutely necessary to offer the job to a foreigner. Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with a growing population. As far as the local government is concerned, job creation for local residents is one of its priorities. Hence the administration in the city stresses the need for companies to offer jobs to local residents first and then only look overseas. Companies having any kind of vacancy must first search extensively within Hong Kong to find a suitable candidate. If after extensive search using multiple methods does not yield the desired results, then only may the company start looking for foreign professionals. However, when applying for the work permit for the foreigner, they would have to show the authorities they did enough to look for a suitable candidate within Hong Kong itself.

As far as the foreign professional is concerned, they must possess relevant work experience and must also have a good educational background. Their most recent experience would be counted towards relevant experience and they must possess a skillset not readily available in the city. Usually the concerned authorities in Hong Kong prefer approving work permit applications for those foreigners who are highly skilled and they feel these professionals would be able to upgrade the skillsets of Hong Kong’s work force. When applying for the appropriate work permit, all relevant experience certificates, educational certificates as well as professional references must be provided. Authorities would go through the entire application and scrutinize the background of the foreign professional thoroughly before approving or rejecting their application.

For foreign companies that incorporate in Hong Kong, the procedure to bring in staff from their head office critical to the business in Hong Kong is fairly simple. For each of the staff members that they need to relocate from the head office, they need to apply for the professional work permit and follow the guidelines in place for newly incorporated companies to bring staff from overseas.

About the Author

Bryan Wong is a business analyst in the Asia-Pacific region and in his free time writes business articles. In this article, Bryan talks about register Hong Kong company and Hong Kong company setup agency.

Author (bryanwong). Submitted on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 Time: 6:03 AM

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