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Employment rate intact despite long queues for migration 

24 Oct 2021

  • Labour Dept. says no complaints from employers
  • Sudden surge is result of waiting for one-and-a-half years 
BY Yakuta Dawood  Regardless of long queues outside the Department of Immigration and Emigration and speculation rising on talent migration, authorities said no employer complained about being unable to find recruits, The Sunday Morning Business learns. Within a week, more than 10,000 Sri Lankans collected their passports to seek employment opportunities overseas, it is learnt. Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, a senior official from the Department of Labour, on condition of anonymity, stated the Government could not take any measures to prevent workers from seeking foreign employment. “People are permitted to seek foreign employment. Additionally, we have not yet received any complaints or reports from employers stating there is an issue with fewer employees in the country,” the official stated. We also spoke to Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) Additional General Manager – International Affairs R.K.K.M.P. Randeniya, who stated that the current surge was a result of people having waited for more than one-and-a-half years to travel abroad for employment. Adding further, he stated that interest and vacancies for Sri Lankan employees from international countries were recently increasing at the SLBFE. “Our advice for people seeking foreign employment is that they should get appropriate consultation from the Bureau and then select the best agency for the job they have applied for before handing over the passport for employment,” Randeniya said. Last month, an individual on Twitter stated: “We handle social media for a leading migration consultancy. They had to stop accepting any new inquiries for (Canada) and (the UK) due to the overwhelming demand. We got some 700+ leads in just the last 2 days. The brain drain in #Srilanka in next few years will be extremely detrimental (sic).” However, in a bid to curtail the long queues at the Department of Immigration and Emigration, Passport Division Controller H.P. Chandralal announced that only 1,000 passports will be issued daily, based on an appointment basis. Meanwhile, the Department of Labour in June stated that the unemployment rate could soar in Sri Lanka, as predicted by credit rating agencies, due to the prevailing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking to The Morning Business at the time, Department of Labour Deputy Director Chandramali Premaratne mentioned that the 2020 data from the Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) may support this prediction. The DCS, considering Sri Lankan Labour Force Survey statistics, mentioned that the labour force participation rate was 51.0% while the unemployment rate was 5.7% in the first quarter of 2020. Furthermore, the estimated labour force participation rate for the fourth quarter of 2020 was 50.1%, with the unemployment rate at 5.2%. However, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), the unemployment rate totalled 4.4% in 2018, two years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

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