Hong Kong authorities have defended its policies on hiring non-locally trained nurses, saying that they are “very small” in number following complaints about the import of non-local workers causing unemployment.

The government said in a statement on Tuesday that Hong Kong’s public hospitals have always prioritised the hiring of locally trained professionals.

Nurses at the Children’s Hospital. Photo: GovHK.

It added that as of end of 2025, Hong Kong had a “very small” number of non-locally trained registered nurses, accounting for less than 0.5 per cent of all registered nurses in the city.

Among those non-local nurses, the majority were part of short-term exchange programmes, the government said, not long-term employment.

The government response came after a Hong Kong resident, who said he was a locally trained psychiatric nurse, said on a radio phone-in programme that many fresh graduates in nursing became unemployed soon after graduation because the Hospital Authority would hire nurses from mainland China.

The resident said his daughter is a fresh graduate trained as a psychiatric nurse and had failed to find a job after graduation.

On Sunday, Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau rebutted his comments, saying that there were no non-locally trained psychiatric nurses in Hong Kong.

Lo said that around 2,100 registered nurses applied for jobs at public hospitals in 2025. Among them, 99 per cent were hired.

Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau meets the press on October 26, 2023. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Tse Kin-keung, chair of The Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff, said on Commercial Radio on Monday that he was unsure how authorities did the math, but that the association was aware of more fresh graduates failing to find a job this year.

Tse said introducing non-locally trained nurses should take into account local recruitment. He suggested the hiring of non-locally trained nurses should be slowed down.

Over the past few years, authorities have introduced a series of measures to facilitate non-locally trained nurses to work in Hong Kong’s hospitals and residential care homes.

In July 2024, the legislature passed an amendment to the Nurse Registration Ordinance with the aim of allowing non-locally trained nurses to practise in Hong Kong without taking a licensing exam as they had to previously.

In Hong Kong, nurses are classified into registered and enrolled nurses, with the former possessing higher educational qualifications. By the end of 2025, Hong Kong had around 57,700 registered nurses and 17,440 enrolled nurses.

The new policy introduced three new pathways for admitting overseas nurses. “Special registration/enrolment” allows them to register in Hong Kong without having to take tests after working full-time in one or more specified organisations for a certain number of years.

The other two pathways are “limited registration/enrolment” and “temporary registration/enrolment,” but these only allow work in specific institutions and cannot lead to full registration.

Hong Kong medics in a public hospital. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Earlier in April, the health minister said in response to a lawmaker that as of 2025, from July 2024 to December 31, 2025, the Hospital Authority received more than 3,700 applications from non-locally trained nurses for long-term service posts.

The Hospital Authority issued 101 offers after conducting interviews. Among them, 30 had registered as nurses in Hong Kong, with over 70 per cent coming from China.

In the same period, 137 non-local nurses also arrived at Hong Kong through “limited enrolment.” All of them work at residential care homes.

Greater Bay exchange programme

Apart from hiring for long-term service posts, Hong Kong also has an exchange programme for mainland Chinese and overseas medics.

In September 2022, the Hospital Authority established the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) Healthcare Talents Visiting Programmes, allowing doctors and nurses from the GBA to work in Hong Kong public hospitals.

Under the scheme, cohorts of GBA doctors and nurses are typically deployed to local hospitals for around 10 to 12 months.

According to a document the government submitted to the legislature, by March, a total of 450 GBA medics have arrived in Hong Kong for exchange. Among them, 310 are nurses.