Unemployment on the rise

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by Maheesha Mudugamuwa-January 2, 2016, 8:38 am 

The latest data from the Department of Census and Statistics indicate that Sri Lanka’s declining unemployment trend has reversed and unemployment is rising. The rate of unemployment went up to five percent in the third quarter of last year from 4.2 percent in 2014.

This puts the official number of unemployed persons at 453,956 by the third quarter of last year.

The unemployment rate in 2013 was 4.3 percent. According to the report; the overall unemployment rate reported last year for females was 7.8 percent and 3.5 percent for males.

Youth unemployment rate reported for third quarter of last year was 22.9 percent and that was the highest among all age groups.

The department reveals that the unemployment among females is higher than among males in all groups. The highest unemployment rate is reported from ‘G.C.E A/L and above group’; it is about 10.1 percent.

Corresponding percentages are six percent and 14.1 percent for males and females respectively.

The report says the female unemployment rates are higher than those of males at all levels of education.

The department says the problem of unemployment is more acute in the case of educated females than educated males.

There was a slight decrease in the number of employed population in agriculture sector from 29 per cent in 2014 to 27.4 per cent in 2015 while in industries and services sectors the number of employed population has slightly increased. In the industries sector, the percentage of employed population has increased to 27.4 percent from 26.6 percent in 2014. In services sector it has increased to 45.5 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2015 from 44.5 percent in 2014, it said.

About 30.9 percent of employed women are in the agriculture sector, while this share is 25.5 percent for males, according to the report.

The estimated economically active population is about nine million of which 64.5 percent are males and 35.5 per cent females.

According to the survey, out of the economically inactive population 25.4 percent are males and 74.6 percent females.

During third quarter of last year, out of the total number of economically active percentage, about 45.5 percent engaged in services sector, 27.2 percent in the industries sector and 27.4 percent in the agriculture sector, the department stated.