Sri Lanka Human Development Report 2012.pdf

twice the rate for the economy as a whole. While the
unemployment rate for the educated has been a concern
to policy makers for decades, the problem remains
unresolved, and in particular, high youth unemployment
rates remain of special concern.
In 2010, across provinces with available data,
unemployment was highest in the Southern, Central and
Eastern provinces in that order, all of which recorded
rates above the national average (see Tables A20 and A21
for details). North Central, Western and Uva provinces
recorded the lowest unemployment rates. This is explained
in the Western Province by the fact that it contributes
close to half of national GDP, and in the North Central
and Uva provinces in part due to the high prevalence of
unpaid or very poorly paid family workers. Compared to
the national average of 10.4 percent for this category, the
proportions in these two provinces were 24.2 and 21.5
percent, respectively. Both have a high dependence on
agriculture as the major source of employment.
The Government employs about 14.3 percent of workers;
the private sector employs 41 percent. Another 42 percent
are self-employed or unpaid family workers, mostly in
low-productivity agriculture.
Sri Lanka’s relatively low unemployment rate depends
on how an employed person is defined. Since more than
a third of the labour force works in low productivity
agriculture and other poor quality jobs, low unemployment
is not necessarily a synonym for good employment.
Other factors that influence labour market performance
include available job opportunities, working conditions,
remuneration and the mobility of workers.
Available evidence indicates that Sri Lanka faces both the
lack of ‘good jobs’ in the formal sector, and a mismatch
between the skills of the educated and those demanded by
the labour market. 202 The lack of language and technology
skills poses major constraints for seekers of whitecollar
jobs created by the private sector since economic
liberalization. 203 According to Hettige and Salih, the
emphasis on monolingual education in Sinhalese has
divided the society into those who speak English well and
those who do not. 204 Language barriers, they note, increase
ethnic divisions by limiting young peoples’ access only to
those jobs using their mother tongue.
Further, because the economic marginalization of
educated youth is common to all ethnic groups, most
of those who do not speak English well look for jobs
in the public sector. The tradition of providing public
sector employment for unemployed graduates practiced
by successive governments has in fact created awkward
incentives. People with degrees wait for public sector jobs
for more reasons than one: competence in English is not
usually a requirement, the working days are shorter, and
the benefits are better. 205
Labour force participation rates are particularly low
for women. Among districts with available data, the
rates climbed above 40 percent only in Nuwara Eliya,
Anuradhapura, Badulla and Moneragala districts, the only
ones in which the agricultural share of employment is
above 50 percent. This suggests that a large share of female
employment is in this sector (Figure 5.2). The low labour
force participation of females in Ampara, Trincomalee and
Batticaloa may be due to cultural reasons, given the high
proportion of Sri Lankan Moors, who are mostly Muslims.
Figure 5.2: Female Labour Force Participation Rates and Agricultural Employment
by District, 2010
Note: Total excludes the Northern Province.
Source: Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka 2010a
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sri lanka Human Development report 2012