Nury Vittachi: Hong Kong produces more science and technology graduates than any other place on earth, a new study showed today.

And the typical Hong Kong “working man” is a woman.

WORLD RECORD
More than 42.4 per cent of everyone leaving higher education in the city have STEM qualifications, the 2025 IMD World Talent Ranking revealed today—a world high.

The city also has one of the largest availability of people with finance skills in the world, said researchers.

Hong Kong also had an unusually high number of women at work, with slightly more females (50.79 per cent) in the labor force than males.

Pay rates for people in business were high, too, with base salary and bonuses for senior managers adding up to US$285,857 a year.

DOWNSIDES TOO
But there were downsides, too. The cost of living in Hong Kong was unusually high, and the workforce had shrunk slightly, giving employers fewer choices.

Data from 69 countries and territories worldwide were examined by the International Institute for Management Development, Zurich.

The study concluded that Hong Kong has the world’s most skilled workforce outside the west. The only places to score higher overall on the talent index were Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Iceland. Hong Kong’s perennial rival, Singapore, came 7th overall.

HARDWORKING SCHOOLS
An interesting side point the researchers discovered concerned education.

Hong Kong scores in fundamental subjects like reading and mathematics were unusually high – but education spending, at 3.9 per cent of GDP, was low.

This suggests students and teachers were working hard to achieve high grades in an under-funded system.