The head of the city's engineering corps has sounded an alarm over a looming shortage of qualified staff, as the city prepares to take up work on HK$10 billion worth of infrastructure projects.

Hong Kong Institution of Engineers President Choy Kin-kuen said the city urgently needed more professional engineers to fill the Chief Executive's (CE) promise of more aggressive housing construction on top of 10 major infrastructure projects announced by Leung's predecessor.

Choy said the engineering field as a whole was experiencing an average 2 percent vacancy rate with the civil engineering sector facing the biggest gap.

Declining to estimate the number of additional experts needed to design and direct the surge of residential and infrastructure developments, Choy called on the government to roll out major public works gradually to minimize the impact on the local labor pool.

The billions of dollars worth of planned public works are expected to exacerbate a growing labor shortage. Choy also called for measures to attract more young people into engineering and establishment of a mutual recognition mechanism to allow foreign engineers to work in Hong Kong. He said the engineering institute will work closely with the administration on the issue.

Choy's call follows an admission from CE Leung Chun-ying that foreign construction workers may be needed to cope with the soaring demand for new homes.

He told lawmakers last week that a lack of workers would inflate construction costs but promised that local workers' incomes will be protected.

The Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union has said there is an additional need for some 9,000 workers to complement 107,000 skilled workers.

The city's builders are also aging quickly, with the vast majority set to retire over the next decade.

Union Chairman Chow Luen-kiu said the government should step up training programs for local laborers before importing overseas talent.

The government has implemented a series of retraining programs, however interest has been weak, while Liberal Party lawmaker James Tien said further inducements would not work, since local youths were disinterested in construction work.

The CE has set a target of 75,000 public housing units to be built over the next five years.

Major public works in the stream include new high speed rail and subway lines, regional bridge links to the mainland, highways, new development areas and the redevelopment of Kai Tak, as well as the redevelopment of West Kowloon into an arts and culture hub.

tim@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 01/24/2013 page1)