UNEMPLOYMENT IN SRILANKA

Unemployment in Srilanka

Unemployment in Srilanka

Task 1

Unemployment has become a burning problem in Sri Lanka today. The number of unemployed is increasing day by day. According to a statement of the central Bank the number is around 700, 000 and 55% are females. Also, around 80% of the unemployed are in the rural sector. Unemployment is highest among the age group of 20 - 30 years.

Private Sector

A number of factors prevailing in the society have paved the way to unemployment. The existing curriculum should be changed to suit the present day needs. It appears that there are lot of jobs in the private sector, especially in technical and industrial sector. If lack of skills is the reason for high unemployment in the country, it is difficult to understand how a large number of people found employment abroad. It is not possible for youths to be skilled at the time they are leaving schools or universities. The employers should realize this situation. They should be given a chance to obtain skills only by “on the job training” (Kelly 2002 325-697). This is why most of the employees are recruited as probationers. Arrangements should be made by the Vocational Training Authority, Technical colleges and other institutions to impart these skills to the youths.

When we go through the employment advertisements published in newspapers, it appears that all the employers expect the fluency in English. Almost all the people in Sri Lanka can converse either in Sinhala or Tamil or both. Therefore, English is not essential to carry out almost all day to day activities within the country. Under this situation, most of our rural youths are rejected at interviews due to lack of knowledge of English, even if they are very capable and have very sound educational and other qualifications. This is very sad state of affairs. In order to overcome this problem, it is essential to draw up a special programmed to train the recruits to acquire fluency in English.

A large number of private sector companies, including garment factories have been closed down during the past few years (Tilak 2001 36-94). This is due to a number of factors including the North - East war. The production in these companies has considerably decreased. The agricultural sector, were there are lot of job opportunities, too has been deteriorated within the past few years.

As for the employers of the private sector, one has to remember that investment in human capital is a kind of interdependence. Only one firm cannot invest in it since it is impossible for the company to hinder the skilled workers to leave for other firms with higher wages (Perkins et.al. 2001 25). In order to avoid situations with high rates of unemployment, it is therefore very important that the demand equals the supply of an educated labour force otherwise this mismatch phenomenon might appear. 

The word “mismatch” is used frequently in earlier research about the Sri Lankan unemployment problem, and we believe that it is important to explain the different contexts in which this term ...