Economy of Jaffna and Business

2/19/2009
Population highlights (cont...)
Age‐sex composition
• under 18 = 33.8%, over 18 = 66.2%
• male = 265,214, female = 294,405
• Sex ratio of 90.1 (90 males to 100 females)
• By DS division: Delft – 98, Jaffna – 96, Vad. East – 95.1, Nallur – 86.2
Ethnic composition
• 1981
• Sri Lankan Tamil – 86.2%
• Sri Lankan Moor – 1.4%
• Sinhalese –0.7%
• Indian Tamil – 0.6%
• Other –0.1%
• 2007
• Sri Lankan Tamil – 99.9%
• Sri Lankan Moor – 0.1%
• Sinhalese –0%
• Indian Tamil – 0%
• Other –0%
Economic status
• Per capita income per month ≈ Rs. 3,208
NB: Based on provincial p.c. income
Source: Consumer Finances and Socio Economic Survey 2003 / 2004
• Some degree of household inequality
• ‘Gini coefficient’ measure of inequality ≈ 0.44
• 0 = perfect equality, 1 = perfect inequality
Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka (2005)
• Jaffna, historically ‘better off’ than other districts in NP, nearly 92% of
people are land‐owners
Source: Jaffna District Statistical Handbook 2003
• During the time of the conflict, much of the NP economy transformed
from agrarian to a service economy –category of ‘public administration
and defence’ was the single highest contributor to NP GDP
• Although agriculture contributes only around 20% to PGDP of NP, it
employs over 50% of the total employed population
Key economic activities
• Crop agriculture, livestock, and fisheries are the major economic
activities in the district
• Red onions, chillies, potato, tobacco etc are the major crops
• Livestock farms –meat, milk and egg production
• Next to farming, the largest employer is the fisheries sector – 12% of the
district population is involved in it (nearly 70,000 people)
Employed Population by Sector (%) 1985/86 to
2004
• 10.5% share of national red onion production
• 8.7% share of national fish production
• 4% share of national milk production
• 3.5% share of national egg production
• 2% share of national chilli production
• 0.7% share of national paddy production
• 0.6% share of national potato production
• 17.5% share of national tobacco production
Employment
• Total number of employed (136,685) is 23% of the total
population
• Employment in Jaffna is much lower than national levels (33%)
• Besides the possible high unemployment in the district, this
number could also be due to not capturing the entire labour
force + informal sector employment is harder to measure
• No hard figures from national statistics, as QLFS hasn’t covered
these areas for over a decade
Occupations of the employed
2