Staff turnover in finance industry was high in Hong Kong in 2006 and talent competition was keen.

It is reported that the staff turnover rate has reached 20% in finance industry in 2006. Most banks therefore worked very hard to retain staff. One of the means is to increase the salaries of employees.

Hang Seng Bank has recently announced to increase the salaries of staff from 1.5% to 8.75%, the highest since 1999. This is to keep up with the market scale so as to retain staff. Yet, the company reveals that the rate of pay rise is determined by the performance of individual staff. Those who did not perform well may not get any salary increase, but those who had good performance may get more than 8%.

The Standard Chartered will release pay rise details by the end of February. Other large banks such as HSBC, Bank of China and Bank of East Asia will announce pay adjustment in April.