Around 43% not contributing to Lanka's workforce | Daily News

Around 43% not contributing to Lanka's workforce

Deputy Secretary General (Operations), Ministry of Human Resources Malaysia, Mohd Gazali Abas, Managing Director, Google India, Ranjan Anandan, Brandix Lanka CEO, Ashroff Omar, Virtusa Chief Operating Officer, Keith Modder, Sanken Construction Managing Director Ranjith Gunathileke.

 

The Economic Summit 2016 which ended yesterday was able to give certain important pointers to improve the economy by improving its skill base. One of the major issues discussed in the first secession of the second day of the summit was that Sri Lanka has a dearth of workforce. It was stated in the forum that out of Sri Lanka’s work pool of 16 million people, nearly 43% are not contributing to the workforce. It was considered necessary to draw these people back into the work pool.

It was also mentioned that the work pool was 50% male and 50% female out of the female percentage 74% are not employed. These individuals are mostly educated yet do not wish to join the work-pool. Chief Executive Officer, Brandix Lanka, Ashroff Omar stated that the most of the country Constructions population is poor yet their is a dearth of labour. He suggested that this was because we do not pay our employees. Most of the women in the country prefers working in the Middle East for US$ 300.

“We needed to implement policies not just have them and looking at the government and waiting for them to give what we want may not come in time, we have to get together and take leadership to make sure we have an immediate program where we can take small steps development. Be have ideas, but it needs to b put into implementation’” he said.

It was mentioned by the Chief Operating Officer, Virtusa, Keith Modder that this issue of drawing the work pool who are not contributing should be discussed in a national level. He stated that most of the time the issue is the miss-matching of skills. The lack of a proper education to School Leavers who have not entered a program of education to improve skills maybe a problem Deputy Secretary General(Operations), Ministry of Human Resources, Malaysia stated with regard to his experience in Malaysia which has a 53% population of female workforce that they invested on Child Car institutions for open so that they will come back into the work pool even after starting a family. “We also provided them with alternatives where the women could work from home. These are areas that Sri Lanka should look at as women once they start a family sometimes may prefer to stay at home and take care of their children if worthwhile incentive is not given,” he said.

Managing Director, Sanken Construction Ranjith Gunathileke said that he construction industry itself has 1 million employment created. However they find it difficult to attract workers into the industry. This has forced them to try to outsource labour from other countries such as India. 

 


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