Hong Kong’s physiotherapy sector has urged the government to expand employment opportunities for locally trained professionals, warning that severe funding cuts will lead to a glut of practitioners, with the surplus projected to exceed 2,000 by 2040.

In a letter to the authorities, the Hong Kong Physiotherapy Association pointed to hiring freezes and job losses at NGOs as a result of budget cuts, even as the government continued to subsidise the training of physiotherapists.

“These developments create a troubling paradox,” association president Alexander Woo Chuen-hau said in the letter addressed to Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau.

“Substantial public investment has developed a highly skilled workforce aligned with documented needs, yet budget constraints now prevent [the] deployment of these trained professionals precisely when demand is escalating.”

Woo told the South China Morning Post on Friday that the association, which has about 1,900 members, had sent the letter following a manpower forum it held on February 28. The event highlighted “alarming and unsustainable trends that demand urgent policy intervention to uphold resource-efficient policy”, he said.

According to the government, 179 social welfare organisations will face funding cuts of between 3 and 7 per cent by the 2027-28 financial year.