Between Sri Lanka’s crisis year of 2022 to the first quarter of 2025, the country has experienced an unprecedented increase in labour migration, with data from 2022 onwards showing a consistent upward trend, although this was somewhat abated in 2023. Despite observable gains in economic stability, more Sri Lankans continue to choose to leave.
The year 2025, the third year on from the crisis year, spells a fate no different. Data from the first quarter shows a 34% increase in migration compared to the same period in 2024.
Although intense labour migration has, in the recent past, incurred much concern about brain drain or loss of Sri Lanka’s technically skilled middle-class workforce, the conversation on migration with regard to Sri Lanka’s low or unskilled workforce has continued to revolve around the necessity for foreign remittances.
Remittance flows
Sri Lanka not long ago critically struggled with replenishing its depleted foreign exchange reserves during its economic crisis and is headed towards repaying in 2028 the loans it had defaulted on.
According to data, workers’ remittances, fuelled by this migration, reached a four-year high in 2024 with $ 6.575 billion, exceeding the combined income from foreign exchange reserves and garment exports.
Accordingly, a sentiment echoed by both its last administration and the present one is that Sri Lanka needs more foreign exchange, and therefore more remittances.
“Remittances have long been Sri Lanka’s biggest source of foreign exchange, consistently outpacing tourism, which ranks second. In most years, remittance inflows have been at least double those from tourism,” Frontier Research Senior Research Analyst Navinda Meepe said, speaking to The Sunday Morning Business.
Interestingly, Meepe pointed out that the migration of middle-class, technically skilled migrants did not necessarily mean that it could contribute to a rise in remittances.
A study conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2022 highlighted the urgent need for upskilling and diversification of labour markets to secure better opportunities for migrant workers. The report detailed that new categories of migrant workers were emerging in Sri Lanka, identifying a new class of professionals and public sector employees seeking opportunities abroad due to the economic crisis.
“After the pandemic, there was a noticeable increase in skilled worker departures, yet remittances didn’t grow at the same pace,” Meepe said.
He explained that one key reason could be that when skilled migration occurred, it often involved entire families relocating and settling abroad, which tended to reduce the need or likelihood of sending money back home. By contrast, he noted that traditional low-skilled migration, particularly to the Middle East, had typically resulted in stronger and more consistent remittance flows.
It remains pertinent that each administration in the recent past has outlined its own plans of upskilling its migrant workforce, of whom a majority seek employment in the Middle East within domestic work and construction, enduring precarious working conditions, and more importantly, are not entitled to skills-based progression within their jobs or careers.
On the receiving end of low wages, exploitation, and stagnancy in skills progression, workers are prevented from seeking better employment and better earnings.
Plans for migration
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Agency Asanga Abeyagoonasekera said that this dilemma had been one he had been tasked with handling during his tenure, more than 10 years before the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government.
He explained that at the centre of the agency’s plans for migration was an audit that was conducted with the consultancy of Ernst & Young, a private firm specialising in assurance, tax, and advisory services. The strategic plan proposed Israel as a key destination for migrants to seek employment within, according to Abeyagoonasekera.
“They identified a few areas. Among the proposed solutions, sending workers to Israel to work in the kibbutzim was identified because of the presence of good labour laws, over other places in the Middle East,” he said, referring to Israeli agricultural settlements located within its occupied territories, which contributed a substantial portion to the country’s total agricultural output.
Roughly 12 years later, the Wickremesinghe administration first sent migrant workers to Israel on 18 December 2023, following an agreement signed in November 2023 to send 10,000 farm workers to the country. According to reports, this agreement was in response to Israel’s need to replace Palestinian agricultural workers who were no longer allowed to work in Israel and Thai workers who had fled when the Be’eri kibbutz, located in southern Israel, was attacked on 7 October that year by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Abeyagoonasekera said at the time the proposal had been presented, workers were exceptionally keen on migrating to Israel, given the substantially higher wages offered by the latter country, in comparison to those offered in other Middle Eastern nations. “Workers wanted to go, since they were to be paid well,” he said.
When questioned about the ethical dilemma on part of the agency in sending workers to work within a conflict zone in more recent times, Abeyagoonasekera stated: “I’m sure they would have been affected; that is why we need to diversify and look for other markets. We need to develop skills in other segments.”
Skills building
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, Deputy Minister of Labour Mahinda Jayasinghe said that the Ministry of Labour was working on holding courses to train migrating workers. “At the moment, we are working to hold courses to train workers in order to send them for skilled jobs. Otherwise, they won’t have a good salary and working conditions.”
He noted that almost 90% of those who had migrated during 2024 had been unskilled workers. “Recognising this, the Vocational Education Ministry and Labour Ministry have been planning on training more workers.”
“The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) sees the potential in their training, which would help more workers to seek employment and opportunities in other countries. Also, the National Institute of Labour Studies (NILS) and National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority (NAITA) have been planning to introduce courses to uplift those who are migrating.”
When asked whether the ministry was focused on incentivising and facilitating migration to countries with recognised skills training programmes and skills accreditations, Jayasinghe stated that doing so was not within the purview of the Ministry of Labour.
“That is not under our scope. It is under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Employment and the Vocational Training Authority (VTA). However, we must hold some discussions regarding this, because there are countries that provide their own training.”
He added that one of the things that had been discussed during a meeting with a Saudi official in January was the need to train workers and increase safeguards for them through skills building and accreditation.
“I recently met with officials from the Japanese Government who demonstrated an interest in offering courses to Sri Lankan migrant workers as well as offering them training and the opportunity to migrate, because there aren’t many aviation-related courses available in the local market. We have asked them to present us with proposals on their plans,” Jayasinghe added, conceding that migration paths through training offered better opportunities to workers.
Exploring alternative employment
The ILO report from 2022 further states that a large proportion of research, particularly on skills, recruitment, and labour mobility, are focused on (female) domestic workers and (male) construction workers primarily within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)/Arab States.
The report adds: “If Sri Lanka hopes to diversify its labour markets and tap into new employment sectors, any future labour market analyses and skills mapping would need to explore alternative employment sectors for both men and women migrant workers.”
It also added that if the island nation wished to diversify its migration employment corridors and expand employment opportunities available to aspiring migrant workers, further research in East Asia (e.g. South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia) and Europe would be key.
In his address at the ‘Global Labor Market Conference’ (GLMC) in January, Deputy Minister Jayasinghe pointed out that despite foreign workers being recruited for 23 job categories in Saudi Arabia, workers from Sri Lanka were recruited for only six such categories.
He added: “The global labour market has created a great opportunity for us to eradicate poverty, adhering to the National People’s Power (NPP) Government’s theme of ‘A Rich Country – A Beautiful Life.’ Out of the 6.4 million families in the country, 2.4 million live in poverty. If these poor families can produce skilled workers required for the global labour market, it will be of great assistance in alleviating poverty in this country.”
Despite questions sent by The Sunday Morning Business to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Employment Arun Hemachandra being accepted by his Media Secretary, no response was received at the time of writing.