Hong Kong to slash over 10,000 civil service posts by mid-2027, minister vows
Civil service minister Ingrid Yeung says close to 60 per cent of cuts will be junior roles and about 3 per cent at senior level
More than 10,000 posts in the Hong Kong government will be cut by the end of June 2027, with close to 60 per cent being junior roles and about 3 per cent at the senior level, a minister has vowed.
Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan said on Monday the move was not “fattening the top but thinning the bottom” and was reasonable because the government workforce had far more frontline staff.
Yeung was briefing legislators on her bureau’s budget for 2026-27 during a special Finance Committee meeting.
“The reduction in establishment is the most direct way to cut actual expenditure as the financial provisions for personal emoluments allocated to bureaus and departments are calculated based on the number of posts rather than headcounts,” she said.
“With the reduction in establishment, the provisions allocated to them will be directly reduced.”
Yeung said a cumulative reduction of more than 10,000 posts was expected within the current term of the administration, noting that the overall civil service had already been trimmed to 188,000.