Considering moving to Hong Kong...

...what do I really need to think about?


Would appreciate any help/thoughts at all please


My wife and I want to move to Hong Kong (we also have a 10month old daughter). I work in finance (within an investment bank) and my wife is a teacher


1. How do we go about obtaining work permits/visas etc?


2. What is the accomodation like and what sort of budget do we need?


3. Is it a good place to bring up a young child?


More queries later I guess, but this is just to start


Thanks

There's a lot to think about really. Hope I can help out.


1. You would need to find a job first and then get sponsored. Your wife could work as a teacher with the EMB (Education Department) and get sponsored that way, alternatively the English Schools Foundation is always looking. But to get a visa she'd have to work full time and may not want to do that with a 10 month old. No idea about finding a finance job though....sorry....but I'm guessing there's a lot out there.


2. Depends on where you want to live and what sort of lifestyle you want. I live on an island about 20 minutes from central and it's a great lifestyle especially for my children. Lots of space, no cars and relatively fresh air. I pay about $16,000 a month for a 1100 sq.ft 3 bedroom apartment. The same thing in Central/Mid Levels would be twice that much. You can pay up to and above $100,000 per month but then your getting something large and really nice.


3. We love it here for our children. Ours are 2 and 5 and they are really enjoying their lifestyle. We have a full time live in helper whom they adore and because we live where we do they have a lot of space to play and can even ride their bikes around the neighbourhood. They have playgrounds, swimming pools and a tonne of friends to play with. It's a great community atmosphere. We miss having a large house and backyard for our children to play in but in exchange we feel that Hong Kong is a really safe place to bring up children. Education is expensive but you won't have to worry about that for afew years yet.


Anyway, hope this has helped a little.

thanks hkjazz, that's very helpful...presumably that's HK dollars? :)


are the apartments relatively quiet and peaceful?


obviously not having a garden is a downpoint but there are plenty of places to go I guess like local parks as well as playgrounds...

For first you have to be sure about your job!

If you have job then you can move to HK!

Second you should think about the place to live!

So you should rent a place! In New Territories is chipper then in Kowloon or Hong Kong Island.

Hong Kong defiantly good place to grow up baby :)

But all about money! If you have good money in other country you can give same things as in HK there too!


So find a home to rent near to your home as near as possible becoz traveling in HK expensive too :) If you will calculate it become same money if you work in Central and live in NT.

So better live near to working place :)


For the family like yours you can rent a flat for a 15k to 25k it's will be 2k USD to 4k USD for a month so be sure that you will earn more then that becoz have to eat too :)


About VISA better your company where you will work help you on this if no you will have some problem on this too!


About budjet! Bring with you money that will enough for 3 month! No one know what may happen and when you really will need money!


Good Luck!!!

2. What is the accomodation like and what sort of budget do we need?


Less space for the money than in the UK or the US but we don't mind. Many places have pools and playgrounds. On the South Side you're looking at 60-140k/month for 3 beds in a nice building with facilities.


3. Is it a good place to bring up a young child?


We find it excellent. We have a 2½ year old and a 14 month old. The great thing about HK is that you can live in an apartment complex with dozens of children. There is always someone to play with only minutes away. No need to drive kids to playdates and so forth. In addition, HK is very safe for kids.


Our helper is great. Our kids get excellent food and good nurturing when we cannot be around. Schools are generally very good and private schooling is much cheaper than in the Northeastern US.


The downside is the pollution, but if you don't live Victoria Harbor it's not that bad.

If you work in finance with an investment bank, and you are front of house, then banks are still hiring in Asia, well everyone except citi I imagine, its not frenetic but it is happening in specific areas, so you really should talk to the headhunters eban, executive access etc etc, your employer will most certainly be able to sort a work visa, if you are middle of house or support however the chances are a lot lower if not slim to nothing.

"The cost of a few days here surely would be worth it in the long run, rather than coming and finding the place not suitable to your needs.


Yes and no. After a few days (and indeed a few weeks) here my wife wanted to leave. Hated the place. Now she wants to stay for many years. It is worth a trip but you should get some sort of reconnaissance orientation with a local relocation firm. Otherwise you're just touristing. I'd also be glad to do the work if you need someone to give you an HK orientation.



"if you are middle of house or support however the chances are a lot lower if not slim to nothing."


Depends on the level. Plenty of operations departments are bringing in expats in the management tiers even today.

You would have to be very very senior to be working in Hong Kong as an expat op's person, running the line or thereabouts probably, there aren't any at my bank, there are at others though, and if you are that senior, its unlikely you would be looking for work or worrying about visas, work would be looking for you and visas would be sorted. Besides if they are that senior, and are relocating to Asia, India is probably the most likely destination those guys would be looking at or where their employers would likely deploy rather than Hong Kong. Most banks are consolidating asian back office work out there. JPM, Goldmans, Lehmans etc etc have all done so and they have done or are sending expat seniors out there to oversee it all. If you aren't a senior guy though, I'd say almost no chance of finding back office work in Hong Kong especially if you cannot speak Cantonese.

I refer to settlements when making that post. You have more chance getting work if you are middle office if you are expat, but its not something I would be making a life changing decision over and moving out to Hong Kong for. Hiring is taking place in Asia and Hong Kong but as I said it is far from frenetic.

Thanks for all your thoughts guys, it certainly makes sense to spend some time in the country and doing some research - I didn't really think of that although it makes perfect sense...we're just so eager to move that being practical sort of went out the window. I work in middle-office risk control as a credit analyst and have applied for a role with my current employer, so if I get it then hopefully they'll smooth the process for me!

"Besides if they are that senior, and are relocating to Asia, India is probably the most likely destination those guys would be looking at or where their employers would likely deploy rather than Hong Kong."


India might be desirable for employers but it's not desirable for most expat candidates. So the employers have to start throwing around ridiculous amounts of money. As nw says, plenty of ops expats still coming to HK. Perhaps not so many in the lower tiers, but still. Also, you can't move all of back office (even all of settlements) that far away from front office. You may save money on salaries but you lose it in errors and inefficiencies caused by distance, not to mention the large infrastructure and systems investment required. India is growing but back offices will still have strong presences close to the markets.



"From my experience the ones that are not hiring are ML, UBS, Citi - most of the others still need good people."


I bet they'll hire next year though. :)

Citi and UBS will probably continue to hire in the future in areas they feel they need to expand their capabilities, but at the margin both those companies will continue to shed jobs as both companies are going through structural change and exiting business's all together. ML not so sure about


This is my 15th year in sales and trading in Asia, or Hong Kong actually and I have worked at 2 different Investment Banks, not the requisite 4 or 5 that most people with my experience would have worked in, which should give an indication of seniority if anything due to tenure, and speaking as someone with a little experience and friends in virtually every market making firm out there, I can tell you there has been a paradigm shift in settlements over the last 5 years, and almost all of it pertains to outsourcing to captive divisions in India. People work in shifts, and there is no question of inefficiencies, these companies spend big bucks on their infrastructure, because in the future its not just back office work that is outsourced, a proportion of front office analytical work can be moved as well and is being moved. Can I get someone in front of me when a trade I have done is booked incorrectly. I never did to begin with, I got them on the phone, sent them a bloom or email. I still do the same thing now. A senior expat accepting a posting like India does so not for the money, but because of the kudos it brings to that person, they have no problems filling those positions


Some banks will not outsource this process at all, but if you have scale you are either seriously considering it or have done so already. Wages and bonus pool make up probably 90% of costs, where you can save big, you will, hence the investment being made.


http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/22/news/companies/banks_outsourcing/index.htm


read that if you don't believe me


As far as back office expat workers, I do not deny there are some in Hong Kong, but in my experience which differs substantially from nw's the raw numbers do not suggest some trend where banks are importing talent, quite the opposite infact it is getting more and more localized actually. Much like the Hong Kong government is today compared to say 15 years ago, there are pockets of expats, but the overwhelming majority of staff is local, especially when you compare it to the percentages in middle or front offices. The fact that a few may be expat really does not mean a lot

Moving away from the finance talk, I think coming for a visit is good but realistically you will just be a tourist and won't really get any idea of what it's like "living" here which is totally different. My husband and I didn't come for a holiday and took the risk that we'd like it. Although we had spent 6 years in Japan so we had had a taste of Asia and knew a little of what to expect. We just love it now and we've only been here for a year!

Also I disagree with Black-Virusss, transport costs here are cheap as chips if you compare it to where I'm from in Australia. For a 1 hour trip on the MTR I pay 90cents Australian. Same thing in Melbourne would cost me $8. We don't have a car here so we're saving a bundle on petrol and insurance. We use taxi's a lot but we think of that as what we might pay in petrol costs every week anyway and it would still be much less!

"So find a home to rent near to your home as near as possible becoz traveling in HK expensive too :)"


I'll chime in and say that transport, from taxi to bus to MTR, is very cheap in HK relative to other "world cities".

I concur with the above posters on how cheap and efficient HK public transport is, and would like to add that licensing (taxing) and insuring my car, which is essential for where I live/work, is actually considerably cheaper than it would cost me to run same model in the UK. Petrol works out about the same price.