Sri Lanka overseas employment, its economic contribution, and composition

Recent trends in Sri Lanka indicate uneven progress in the labour market. Millions of youth remain unemployed, and even more are working but earning too little to help their families escape poverty. Moreover, in spite of some improvements in job quality, more than half of all workers in the region still do not earn a wage or salary and are often trapped in unproductive and informal work arrangements.

Foreign employment has become the largest source of foreign exchange in the Sri Lankan economy during the past few years. Since 1970’s when formal employment migration commenced, foreign employment has generated substantial inflows of remittance while relieving pressure on unemployment of youth by providing employment abroad.

A total of 263,307 persons (males 66%, females 34%) left for foreign employment in 2015. During the year 2015, the workers’ remittances accounted a sum of Rs. million 948,957 and it was around 9% of the GDP of Country, Foreign employment has also been important in terms of skills transfer, investment, brain circulation in addition to contributing to overcome the problems of balance of payment, unemployment etc. Analysis of statistics discloses that the total departures for foreign employment in 2015 decreased by 12.4% compared to 2014. Increase in departures through private sources by 18.2% and decrease in recruitments by licensed foreign employment agencies by 33.9% caused this change in total departures.

Migration of women for employment, to a greater extent, remained steady from 1995 to 2015 and declined to 34 % in 2015 due to the rapid upward swing in men’s migration. Further, several policy decisions taken by the SLBFE during the latter half of the year 2013 have also caused the decline in number of females who migrated in 2014. Increasing the minimum age limit of women migrating for domestic work, upgrading the training given to female domestic workers to the level 3 of National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) and making this qualification compulsory for women migrating to Saudi Arabia for domestic work, and introducing the mandatory requirement for potential women migrant workers to submit a family background report etc; are among the most influential policy decisions.

Increase in departures of professionals by 16.5% in year 2015 compare to year 2014, and increase in number of persons left for skilled level jobs by 12.2% are among the other important developments taken place in 2015.¹

Middle East remains the major region of destination of Sri Lankan migrant employees while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are the major receiving countries. In 2015, 84% of the total migrant employees were recruited by these 04 Middle Eastern countries.

^1-Annual Statistical Report of Foreign Employment 2015

The different barriers to the free movement of migrants in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka continues to face a number of challenges in the field of foreign employment such as the vulnerability of workers who migrate under risky and unsafe conditions and the predominance of low-remittance, low-skilled jobs mainly for women with heavy social costs for families. Thus, the delicate balance between the promotion of foreign employment and the protection of national workers abroad is a continuous challenge.

In addition, increase in local wage levels and cost of recruitment, and decrease in wage levels offered by foreign employers are among the factors lowering the motivation of Sri Lankan employees to go for foreign employment.

Despite a substantial increase of remittances for Sri Lanka, most of these are coming from the 37 % unskilled migrant workers.  Also, these workers, because of their unskilled status are expose to the dirty, dark and dangerous work environment.

The objective for Sri Lanka is not really increasing the number of overseas workers but rather than raising the competencies of the existing workers in order to increase the productivity thus increasing its marketability in the construction, service sectors including the domestic worker sector.

When foreign employment by manpower level is considered, skilled level job categories continued to remain as the categories having the highest demand among manpower categories of migrant workers. Therefore recorded in year 2015 unskilled level job categories coming second highest job category. And the housemaid job category was highest number of foreign employment departures up to now from 1995. However, the share of housemaids who were usually belong to the lower income groups in the society, has increased up to 54 percent in 2005, but from there onwards the percentage has sharply declined reaching 28 percent in 2015.

Approximately 57 per cent of total departures comprised of unskilled workers and Housemaid categories. Only 2.4 per cent of worker departures were under the Professional category. Nevertheless, the skilled labour category contributed to 31.2 per cent of total departures, which is an encouraging development in the drive to enhance the migrant employment profile of the country[1].

Gross enrolment ratio (GER) at tertiary level 17%, 24,198 (16.7%) was only selected out of 144,816 which qualified for state university entrance.

Ø  Main challenges of the education system are lack of quality, attractive and relevance to job market

Ø  Changing population profile from child to adolescent & youth

Ø  Increase labour force from 7.3 million in 2010 to 8.9 million in 2015

Ø  Annually about 150,000  adolescents and youth join the labour force with low skills or no skills at all

Ø  Unemployment rate is 4.3% but youth unemployment is higher (13%)

Departures for Foreign Employment by      Gender, during the period 1986 - 2015

Figure-01

When the departures for foreign employment are considered from 1995 onwards, it is seen that the share of females, have gradually declined from 73 per cent in 1995 to 37 per cent in 2014, thus showing a transitions from female dominance in departures for foreign employment in mid-1990s to male dominance , by around 2008. Since 2008, more male departures are observed, except in 2009. Both the Table 1 and Figure 1 clearly show this transition.

During the year 2015, it has been recorded that more than 65 percent of male workers registered for foreign employment. The total departures of female workers were 34 per cent and out of that 28 per cent of recorded as housemaids.

Comparison of Male Migrant Workers, Housemaids &Other Female Migrant Workers During the Period 1996 – 2015

                              

In 1996, 92.5 per cent of the female departures for foreign employment were consisted of housemaids. The percentage has declined steadily to 80 by 2015. The increase in other categories of employment by females is extremely slow. There is a significant decrease in the number of housemaids (15,350 persons) departed in 2015 when it’s compared to 2014 (Table 1). Other than housemaid female departures were recorded 17,399 which was 19 per cent of total female foreign employment.

Sharply decrease in Departures for Foreign Employment in 2015: Foreign employment placements during the year 2015 were reported as 263,307 which show a 12.4 per cent decrease compared to 2014. This may be due to the decrease in employment opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E. and non-Middle East countries

STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS IDENTIFIED BY THE PANEL OF Human Capital Summite 2016

Review the current Education system on career guidance and direction to inform student s and parents on available sources of employment and career paths

• Primary/secondary Schools to include in their curriculum information relating to the "World of Work" and relevant soft skills
• Establish guidance mechanism in schools to students (and parents) in Primary/secondary School regarding career options and openings available in the TVET sector in line with market demand for employment.
• Rural youth in particular, has to be made aware of the skill training opportunities through career guidance
• Review the teaching methodology.
• Train the teachers programs to be introduced to up skill the teachers
• Practical training to be set up under the Vocational training department and certificates to be issued.

Improve Fair recruitment and reduce migration costs

• Establishment of one-stop shop center for Migrant workers
• To reduce the cost of labour migration and enhance development outcomes for migrant workers and their families, as well as for countries of origin and destination
• The fees charged by the agencies need to abolished, as the agencies get paid by the employers

Establish decent employment and working conditions and support in relation to travel document, wages, Social protection, complaint mechanism, occupation safety and health.   

• Reinforce mechanisms available to protect the rights of workers, including migrant workers, from abusive and fraudulent practices during the recruitment and placement process (including pre-selection, selection, transportation, placement and safe return).
• Set up Toll Free 24 hour help line with facility to speak in Tamil and Sinhala
• Intensify mechanisms available prevent human trafficking and forced labour
• Support and strengthen Return and reintegration system for migrant workers

Skills development and recognition system in place and sustaining the implementation of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and Colombo Process skills Pilots.

1. Access to up to date, more structured, organized information & recommendations to better plan skills enhancement and placement schemes.
2. Develop joint minimum standards for skills training, certification and recognition.
3. Strengthen skills testing and recognition mechanisms for potential and returning migrants

Establish dynamic Migrant Labour information system that provides accurate requirements/demand for foreign workers as well as workers deployed and returnees to enable better planning of the development process of country and welfare of workers

1. ·         Ministry and Bureau of Foreign Employment to engage with the department of Census and Statistics and Immigration to develop a more comprehensive information system.
2. ·         This can be integrated to the passport control system
3. ·         Department of Census to examine ways to capture migrant labour information to feed into required programmes/policies
4. ·         Establish links with other Labour sending countries to obtain information on  current and emerging demand for migrant labour

Strengthen links and contribution to the country by the Permanente Migrant from Sri Lanka

1. An estimated 3.0 million SL diaspora scattered around the world with very strong and distinct emotional, cultural, financial and political ties with SL. The GoSL must avail of this opportunity to improve its international image with this group as they form the best informal ‘ambassadors’ for SL .
2. GoSL has yet to build an environment that is conducive to building trust
3. Peace building and reconciliation are pre-requisites to inclusive and sustainable development
4. Institutional reforms are therefore urgently required to ensure that a system of good governance is built upon the four pillars of meritocracy, multiculturalism, pluralism and secularism
5. It is only then that a true SRI LANKAN IDENTITY can be forged
6. It is suggested that Sri Lanka embarks on a journey towards creating a holistic and multi-sectoral COMPETITIVE IDENTITY
7. In a) exports b)  governance c) investment and immigration d) culture & heritage e) people and f) tourism
8. There should also be sincerity in pursuing institutional reforms to address the mistakes of the past
9. The creation of a “Division for People of Sri Lankan Origin” by the MoFA is commendable much more needs to be done

Highlights

·   Total number of departures for foreign employment has been decreased by 12.4% from 300,703 in year 2014 to 263,307 in year 2015. (Male: 172,630, Female: 90,677)

·   Majority of the males had been recruited as skilled levels recruitment in the year 2015 which was 45% of total male migrant workers.

·   Majority of the females had been recruited as Housemaids in the year 2015 which was 81% of total female migrant workers.

·   It has been recorded Rs. 948,957 Million as private remittances in the year 2015.

·   Recorded sources of foreign exchange earnings shows that migrant workers in Middle Eastern Countries remitted Rs. 512,437 Million in 2015, which was 54% of all remittances.

·   Average Departures for foreign employment per day was 721 during the year.

·   The projected number of departures was 245,550*, during the year 2015.

·   The majority of total foreign employments were male participation as it was 65.56% out of total departure during the year 2015.

·   The female participation for foreign employment was 34.44%, out of total departures during the year 2015.

^·   The number of registered Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies has been decreased from 1,100 agencies in the year 2014  to 1,006 agencies in year 2015.

·   Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.A.E. and Kuwait were the major labour receiving countries that have captured over 84% of Sri Lanka labour market.

·   Recruitment of male categories has been decreased by 9.2% over year 2014 while recruitment of female categories has been decreased by 17.9% over year 2014.

·   Over 93% of Sri Lankan employees working abroad were in the Middle Eastern countries, during the year 2015.

·   The number of job vacancies received by Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies was 356,115 in year 2015.

·   The departures for foreign employment through private sources (Self-Basis) were 146,441 which was an increase by 18.2% over year 2014 while agency sources were 116,866 which was a decrease by 33.9%.

·   It has been reported that Majority of recruitments for foreign employment from Colombo district. It was 31,410 in year 2015 which was a decrease by 11.9% over year 2014.

·   546 Agencies out of 1,006 valid foreign employment agencies are located in Colombo district in year 2015

·   The number of complaints received during the year 2015 was 8,366 which was 3.2% of total recruitment. However, it is noted that the complaints are received from or on behalf of the persons who have migrated in the preceding years too.

·   The value of insurance claims paid to workers was Rs. 256,104,699/= in year 2015.

·   Number of deaths reported during the year 2015 was 312.