Vickers: recruitment changes can boost police skills

A risk consultant says a move to allow the police to recruit permanent residents who haven’t lived in Hong Kong for seven years is a smart move that will help the force fill vacancies and pull in a wider range of skills.

Speaking on RTHK’s Hong Kong Today programme on Friday, Steve Vickers said the police had faced difficulties in filling vacancies since the social unrest of 2019, when officers found themselves on the frontline against anti-government protesters. He said vacancy numbers reached about 5,700 by the end of last year.

However Vickers, who served with the Hong Kong police for 18 years, said a career in policing was likely to become more attractive at a time of economic uncertainty, and widening the pool of recruits would make sense.

“It’ll bring people with different experiences, maybe better language skills if they’re being picked up from universities around the world, particularly at the inspectorate level and I think it will help fill the slots,” he told RTHK’s Samantha Butler.

“We’re approaching, I think, a very serious international recession so people will start to be looking for ‘iron rice bowl’ jobs as opposed to the more trendy IT or banking-type jobs which perhaps people would like. Now people are looking for stability and job security.”

Announcing the changes on Wednesday, police superintendent Baron Chan said easing the residency requirement would bring the police in line with other disciplined services.

He said the force intended to hire 240 inspectors and 1,350 constables in the coming year.

The new recruitment policy took effect from Friday.