ENG-2015 — Page 67

M

The Economy

economies, Hong Kong's productive capacity has effectively expanded. Its well-established linkages with the Mainland economy have underpinned the growth of Hong Kong's services sector, especially the rapid development of trading, financial and other supporting services.

The increasing service orientation of the economy was also borne out by a shift in the sectoral composition of employment. Over the past two decades, the share of the services sector in total employment increased from 78 per cent in 1995 to 87 per cent in 2005 and 88 per cent in 2015. As for individual service segments, import/export trade and wholesale, retail, accommodation and food services accounted for 31 per cent of the total in 2015. This was followed by public administration, social and personal services with a share of 26 per cent; financing and insurance, real estate, professional and business services (20 per cent); and transportation, storage, postal and courier services, information and communications (11 per cent) (chart 4).

Chart 4

Wholesale, retail and import/export trades, restaurants and hotels 34.6%

Other sectors 22.4%

Employment by Major Service Sector

1995

2015 Transportation, storage, postal and courier services, information and

Transport, storage and communications

11.0%

Finance, insurance, real estate and

business services 11.5%

communications

11.3%

Financing

and insurance, real estate, professional and business services 20.0%

Community, social and personal services 20.4%

Import/export, wholesale and retail trades,

accommodation and food services 30.6%

Other

sectors

11.6%

Public administration, social and

personal services

26.5%

Import/export trade and wholesale, retail, accommodation and food services employed the most people in 2015.

Notes: The compilation methodology of composite employment estimates was reviewed in June 2005. Employment figures from 1996 onwards have thus been revised accordingly. They are not strictly comparable with those of earlier years.

Starting from the first quarter of 2009, industrial classification of employment has adopted the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification Version 2.0 while that in the previous years is based on Version 1.1.

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