Sri Lanka’s unemployment rate up 5% in 3Q15

28 December 2015 03:07 am

Female unemployment rates continue to be high in all levels of education

Sri Lanka’s unemployment rate in the third quarter of 2015 (3Q15) rose to 5 percent from 4.2 percent in December 2014 and 4.5 percent in the second quarter of 2015.

According to the latest Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey estimates of the Census and Statistics Department, the number of unemployed persons estimated during 3Q15 was of 453,956.

Persons available and/or looking for work, and who did not work and taken steps to find a job during last four weeks and ready to accept a job given a work opportunity within next two weeks are said to be unemployed.

Overall unemployment rate reported for females was 7.8 percent and it was 3.5 percent for male. 

Youth unemployment rate 15 – 24 years reported for the third quarter 2015 was 22.9 percent and that reports the highest unemployment rate among all age groups. Further rates for both males and females were 20.3 and 26.8 percent respectively, for age group 15—20.

The survey results further revealed that the unemployment among females was higher than that of males, in all age groups. Youth and female unemployment contribute more to the overall unemployment of the country.

The highest unemployment rate was reported from the G.C.E (A/L) and above group which was about 10.1 percent. Corresponding percentages were 6 percent and 14.1 percent for males and females, respectively. Female unemployment rates were higher than those of males in all levels of education.

This further shows that the problem of unemployment is more acute in the case of educated females than educated males, which was observed consistently over the results of previous survey rounds as well.

Out of the 5.5 million employed population, the survey estimates showed that over 45 percent of the labour force were in the services sector while 27.4 percent and 27.2 percent were in the agriculture and industries sectors, respectively.

Meanwhile, the country’s labour force or economically active population stood at 9 million in 3Q15.

The labour force participation rate or labour force as a percentage of the population aged 15 years and over was 53.8 percent. 

Of the 9 million labour force, 64.5 percent were males and 35.5 percent were females.

Out of the economically inactive population, 25.4 percent were males and 74.6 percent were females.