Generally youths are the backbone
of a society. Youth’s participation in all aspects of society is very important
at any time. Unfortunately as we see that Sri Lankan youth generation both male
and female face a state of deprivation. They have no or limited role in
decision making process or leadership programs at the local and national level.
So isolation of youths either intentionally or unintentionally can lead them to
drug abuse, illegal and criminal actions, depression, migration and so on,
while youths are the potential group and actor for structuring future of
Afghanistan.
This project is designed to
provide career motivation, career opportunities, gender awareness, leadership,
and advocacy, trainings directly benefitting youths and advocates media campaigns
through Radios, Printed Media, and Boards. This media campaign will reach to
almost all youth generation in the target area and raise awareness about their
active role in civil society and policy initiatives.
In addition, career fair programmes
are highly popular in the eyes of both employers and potential youth job
seekers. To support the recruitment, application, and networking
process, career fairs and training expos are held all over the world in
various locations. This is a resourceful way to meet the needs of both
employers and potential job seekers. Employers meet, inform and interview
hundreds of potential applicants, while job seekers get the chance to ask
questions, talk up their skills and make important connections.
Basically, finding a job can be a
challenge for youth in Sri Lanka. They must determine what careers are
available, what their interests are, and what skills they have or need to
develop. Numerous resources are available to help youth get a sense of their
interest and skills as well as gain employment experience and learn about
employment opportunities. It’s an event where these target group can explore
careers in a whole new way, getting involved in career workshops and exploring
exhibits. Job seekers, school leavers can speak to all kinds of employers who
can’t wait to tell you more about what you could do if you joined them. The
employers at careers fairs are nearly always very youth-friendly with all kinds
of apprenticeships, graduate schemes and starter jobs on offer that could lead
to a big, bright future!
Major
challenge for labour shortage in Sri Lanka
Labour shortage is one of the
major challenge is facing by leading sectors in Sri Lanka. National Human Resources Development Council
of Sri Lanka has been conducting Career Fair and Career Motivation Programme
for youth, job seekers and school leavers with collaboration with Public and
Private sector representatives in 2018
Strategically located in the
Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is a ‘gateway’ to South Asian markets with a population
of approximately 1.9 billion people. With a workforce of around 8.2 million,
our nation is blessed with a high literacy rate of 97%. The computer literacy
rate is around 29%. Mr.Kanishka, CEO (EFC) said.
Even though, while the industry
suffers from severe labour shortage such as tourism, construction, garment,
plantation, ICT and services, one out of every five Sri Lankan youth remains
unemployed: (Table 1 - Number of Unemployment and Unemployment rate by age
group and gender – Second quarter 2017).
A large number of youth are neither in education nor in
employment. The amount of neither in education nor in employment more than
doubles from 16 per cent to 37 per cent from 15 year olds to 24 year olds. Although they spend more time in education,
the educational outcomes of youth are not satisfactory. Of the 25-29
year olds, only 8 per cent obtained a degree or a higher level of education.
The rest did not have tertiary level qualifications.
As you all know, today there are
about eight million people reported as employed, unemployment rate is as low as
4.6 per cent; it is just about 372,000.
Although, one of the biggest challenge that Employers are faced with
today is finding workers for their business. Now there are thousands of workers
from China and India, while the opportunities are opening up to recruit labour
from Nepal and Myanmar as well. Another issue is statistics show that the
population above the age of 60 years was 2.5 million in 2012 which is 12.5% of
the total population whereas projection shows that Sri Lanka would have elderly
population of about 3.6 million by 2021, which is 16.7% of the total population
and by 2041, one-quarter of the population would be elderly.
“National labor force will be
further burdened with the outward migration of young local talents and once if
the existing Sri Lanka’s low level of female labor force participation is
continued. Furthermore, statistics shows that the labor force participation of
the Sri Lankan elderly population also remains low.” Author LBO said.
The beneficiaries of this project are totally youth generation.
• Direct beneficiaries:
25,000 Youths in the country (45%
female) with considering bellow criteria.
- Aged between 18-30
- Unemployed and poor youths
- Committed to participate in
program activities
- Prefer to have leadership and
lobbying spirit
- Fresh gradates and school leavers who are looking for job and
skilled development training
Objectives
u Introduce
prospective employers to our dropout students and youths.
u Raise
the level of awareness among the people in 25 districts.
u Encourage
youth to participation in the sociopolitical process.
u Promote
youth volunteerism for peace and development.
u Expose
students and youth to entrepreneurial project sponsors.
u Initiate
the networking process between prospective students, youths and prospective
employers.
u Allow
students and youths to experience real interviews.
u Showcase
youths' & students' skills and competencies to employers and project
sponsors.
u Facilitate
the opportunities for our youths and students to gain employment.
u Stimulate
youths' interest in career building possibilities.
Output of this project.
So these programmes through these
objectives, focus on reduce the number of unemployed, Facilitate job seekers to
find work according to their professionalism, skills, talents and interests, helping
the company to get qualified workforce, professional as per company requirement
etc.
These programmes organize
in association with many stake holders such as TVEC, Ministry of
education, Department of manpower and employment, Employer’s Federation of
Ceylon, Chamber of commerce and district secretariat and industrial
representatives from various backgrounds like Textiles & Garments,
Auto Mobile, Hotel & Tourism, Information & Communication Technology,
Construction, Food technology and Electronic & Tele Communication
Engineering.
In conclusion, participants at
these programmes learned about staffing patterns, job demands, employer
requirements and post-secondary programs available from vocational training
providers.
We hope organizing such job fairs
on a regular basis will help the educated youth to find jobs in reputed firms
across the country. TODAY, we raise awareness with youth.
TOMORROW, we have a stronger & knowledgeable workforce pipeline.
It's a long-term investment and it's up to us to plant the seed
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