Official estimates show Hong Kong's population rose by 2.1 percent to almost 7.5 million people in the past year. The increase of 152,000 people marked the end of a decline first recorded in 2020. The government attributed the increase to people returning to the SAR after staying elsewhere during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as people coming from the mainland and overseas after being admitted through talent schemes. But the city still saw more deaths than births over the past year. University of Hong Kong population policy expert, Professor Paul Yip, told Frank Yung that he was not sure whether Hong Kong's population would continue to rise:

The Family Planning Association says financial incentives are not enough to encourage couples to have babies. Of the more than 1,500 married or co-habiting couples they polled last year, over 40 percent had actively chosen not to have children, with the number of childless couples double that of five years ago. Dr Mona Lam, the executive director of the association, called the findings alarming. She told Samantha Butler that a more family-friendly environment was needed in Hong Kong, such as providing child-care and flexible work arrangements and improving the education system:

The aviation sector hopes imported staff can start coming to the SAR in October and begin their new jobs ahead of the Lunar New Year. The sector says it is arranging for these workers to live in Zhuhai. Violet Wong reports:

President Xi Jinping says ecological conservation plays a vital role in China's sustainable development. He was speaking as the country marked its first National Ecology Day. In Hong Kong, the government and various environmental groups put on a series of activities to mark the occasion, as Vanessa Cheng reports:

The Hong Kong Construction Association has described the government's guidelines on preventing heatstroke as "too complicated to implement" for the construction sector. In response, the association has come up with their own guidelines which would allow all workers to rest for a fixed amount of time, depending on what heat warning signal is in force. The association's vice-president, Conrad Fung, explained the guidelines to Vanessa Cheng:

The Consumer Council has found that nearly 40 percent of skin toners it sampled contained alcohol - which could dry out the skin - and allergens. The watchdog warned people not to overuse such facial cleaning products and said water was good enough. Anne Chan reports:

An NGO that encourages recycling has expressed concern that the upcoming pay-as-you-throw scheme will overwhelm cleaning workers. The group, Drink Without Waste, says authorities should renovate refuse-collection stations to make them more hygienic, better ventilated, and more comfortable in which to work. Debby Cheng from the Design Institute for Social Innovation of the Polytechnic University, who has helped revamp refuse-collection stations, says the public should know how to recycle properly to reduce the burden on cleaning workers:

Mainland officials say they will no longer release youth jobless numbers starting this month, citing the need to improve how labour statistics are calculated. The announcement by the National Bureau of Statistics came as the nation’s overall unemployment rate for July rose to 5.3 percent, up slightly from a month ago. Kelly Yu reports: