According to the Labor Force Survey data released by the Department of Census and Statistics, the unemployment among females in all age groups and youth is higher than that of men contributing more to the overall unemployment of the country.
According to the Labor Force Survey, which is designed to measure the levels and trends of employment, Sri Lanka’s unemployment rate for 2019 has risen to 4.8 percent from 4.6 percent in 2018, ranking it third among South Asian countries with high unemployment rates.
Out of the 411,318 unemployed population reported, unemployment rates of females are higher than those of males among all age groups.
The overall unemployment rate reported for female has risen to 7.4 percent from 7.1 percent reported in 2018 and it is 3.3 percent for male.
Youth unemployment (age 15 – 24 years) rates are the highest for both sexes, compared to other age groups. The unemployment rates for males and females are 17.6 and 28.7 percent respectively for age group 15-24.
According to the survey, only 52.3 percent of population contributed to the labor force in Sri Lanka in 2019.
Out of the 8.6 million economically active population about 5.6 million or 73.0 percent were males and females accounted for 34.5 percent.
Economically inactive population accounts for about 7.8 million and of that 3.0 million or 73.7 percent were females.
Among the 8.6 million employed, 47.1 percent were involved in the service sector, 27.6 percent in the industrial sector, and 25.3 percent in the agricultural industry.
A worrisome statistic was that the group with the highest education was the most unemployed. When level of education is considered the highest unemployment rate of 8.5 percent was reported from the G.C.E. (A/L) & above group of over 172,000 people. It is 5.0 percent for males and 11.9 percent for female.
When the provincial distribution considered the highest unemployment rate of 6.7 percent was reported from Southern province.
Female unemployment rates are higher compared to that of male in all provinces. In Eastern & Northern provinces comparatively very high female unemployment rates are observed. When the district level distribution is considered the highest unemployment is reported from Matara District (7.5%) while the lowest rate is reported from Kilinochchi (2.4%).
(The Department of Census and Statistics cautions that sampling errors and confidence limits need to be considered when interpreting changes in unemployment rate).
More on Labor Force Survey
Courtesy: Colombo Page
