The volatility in Poly employment comes from having to play the politics with the lau chiaus who have been around a long time and need to maintain their "deadwood" life. All extremely beaurocratic.

If you can't get on, its not that easy to move from one Poly to another whereas you can move from one bank to another relatively easily or one manufacturing job to another. So, some end up unhappy for long periods of time.

Its not that you can't earn enough to retire on, its just that you will have a lot less than normal people with similar capability. The period in which many think about switching to Poly because of stress is in their prime earnings years. They may regret it later. MI is just typically 2-3 months for newer staff. Its the trade-off for an easier job.