A telephone survey was conducted from 16 to 26 April 2021 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to gauge public views on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the current economic situation and prospects of Hong Kong. Through the survey, 706 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with response rates of 30.2% (landline) and 31.6% (mobile). The sampling error is plus or minus 3.69 percentage points, at a confidence level of 95%.<\/p>\r\n
Major findings are summarised as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n Of the respondents successfully interviewed, 38.1% saw a reduction of their households\u2019 income because of the pandemic, more than half of the respondents (53.9%) did not see any change. When asked about any fear for themselves or their family members of being laid off during the pandemic, 40.8% of the respondents were very worried or worried, while 46.8% were not worried or not worried at all.<\/p>\r\n Around half of the respondents (49.0%) deemed the current economic situation to be worse than that of last April. Over a third of the respondents (37.1%) did not see much change. Only 10.2% of them deemed it to be improving. Two fifths of the respondents (39.8%) perceived the current consumer market worse than that of last April. Over a third (37.8%) did not see much difference, while 15.1% perceived it as improving. Comparing their current personal spending to that of April last year, 34.0% of the respondents had cut their spending; 50.8% spent about the same, while 10.3% spent more.<\/p>\r\n A quarter of the respondents (25.9%) were optimistic about the prospects of the local economy in the forthcoming 12 months, while 21.1% were pessimistic and 44.5% did not expect any change. In terms of household income in the forthcoming 12 months under the pandemic, over half of the respondents (52.2%) were very worried or worried, while 38.2% were not worried or not worried at all.<\/p>\r\n Two fifths of the respondents (39.9%) reckoned that an increasing vaccination rate in Hong Kong would help the local economy to recover, but 42.1% thought the help would be small or very small.<\/p>\r\n The survey has kept track of changes in respondents\u2019 views on the development of the local pandemic. Of the respondents successfully interviewed, 41.4% estimated that the local pandemic might ease in the coming month. 8.4% estimated it would worsen, while 46.3% felt it would be about the same. The percentage distribution of views was not significantly different from the last survey conducted in March 2021.<\/p>\r\n Less than a fifth of the respondents (18.7%) believed the current countermeasures by the government should be tightened, and 41.0% would like them to remain the same. A third of the respondents (33.1%) preferred a relaxation of the current countermeasures. The overall percentage distribution of views regarding lockdown strategies had not significantly changed from the last survey in March 2021.<\/p>\r\n Nearly a half of the respondents (47.3%) were not worried about being infected by COVID-19, 40.3% were somewhat worried, 7.9% were quite worried, and 2.6% were very worried. The percentage distribution of the level of worry was not significantly different from the last survey in March 2021.<\/p>\r\n Two thirds of the respondents (67.7%) were quite worried or very worried about an oncoming recession of the local economy, while 25.4% were not worried or were not worried at all. However, the percentage distribution of views was not significantly different from the last survey in March 2021.<\/p>","show_as_achievement":false,"achievement_category":[],"show_as_clarification":false,"show_as_announcement":false,"photos":null,"attachments":[{"text":"Attachment (Chinese version only)","link":"","file":113729}],"video_source":"","video_file":"","add_play_button":false,"video_caption":"","show_migration":false,"original_id":0,"photos_original":null,"attachments_original":null},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/113721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/113721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113731,"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/113721\/revisions\/113731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}