Our study suggests that there is little danger of over-qualification as far as the
Hong-Kong firms in the PRD region are concerned. The risk of human capital
depreciation on the other hand as result of under investment is real. Whilst the senior
echelons are inpatriated from Hong-Kong and because of that perhaps not
necessitating (as temporary staff) a training investment, at the other end of the
organizational spectrum, the lower ranks are deemed unworthy of human capital
investment. One possible explanation is that employers consider their junior staff’s
duties to be routine and low skilled. The other explanation is that the market is
saturated with supply of low skilled staff that is therefore easily replaceable.