Hopelessness, Economic Pressure and Exodus of Youth

The number of Sri Lankans leaving the country annually for overseas employment is over 260,000. This far exceeds the number of people added to the labour force annually. The vast majority of those who leave are young men and women. Anyone who observes the movement of people at the Katunayaka International airport would have no difficulty in comprehending such statistics. A national survey on youth that was conducted at the University of Colombo, towards the end of 2009 showed that over 50% of the youth interviewed in all parts of the country desired to work outside Sri Lanka. Moreover, nearly a third of the young people wished to leave the country altogether. These trends indicate that they are not hopeful that they can build a stable future by remaining in the country.

The above trends observed in the country are matched only by youth in African countries. The tendencies were much weaker in other Asian countries, according to a Gallup poll conducted in 2010. This is certainly indicative of widespread hopelessness among Sri Lankan youth.

Demographers say that Sri Lanka still has a large youth population that can be tapped for social and economic development in the country. But if a majority of them look for employment opportunities overseas, they are unlikely to be available for productive employment in the country. It has been estimated that about 1.8 million Sri Lankan’s are employed overseas. The vast majority of them are still young, between 20 and 35 years of age. The tendency to migrate is strong among minority youth.

Certainly, no one single factor can explain the above trend. Yet, the desire to earn higher wages is no doubt a key factor. While it is true that Sri Lanka’s wages today are perhaps the highest in South Asia, most people desire even higher wages, thanks to the steadily increasing prices of basic consumer goods and services. For instance, garment factory workers in Bangladesh earn less than 50% of what their counterparts in Sri Lanka earn: yet the latter complain that their earnings are not adequate to meet their personal and household expenses. The wages of unskilled and skilled workers have gone up two hundred times since the mid 1970s. Yet, the daily wages of these workers are grossly inadequate to meet their day-to-day expenses. Most of the employed youth find it difficult to save for the future.




As is well known, most people in the country today complain about the cost of living. This is understandable because nearly 80% of the employed persons earn much less than the average monthly per capita income of 36,000 rupees



Young people, especially if they are unmarried, have social obligations that they cannot ignore. Supporting parents and younger siblings often cost them a great deal. Many young men often come under peer pressure to consume alcohol and other substances and these absorb a significant part of their earnings. They often have trouble with law enforcement officers, especially if they use their own transport like three wheelers and motor bikes. Paying bribes to traffic police is not an uncommon experience for many youths in all parts of the country. Married youth with children often have to bribe school authorities to admit their children to good schools.

It is against the above background that we need to understand the strong desire on the part of the youth to migrate overseas. The day-to-day experience of many youth often does not encourage them to plan for a stable future in Sri Lanka. The fact that most youth in the country cannot find regular, secure employment encourages them to look for overseas employment or leave the country altogether.




Temporary overseas employment is not a substitute for stable, life-long employment that enables young people to plan their future




As is well known, most people in the country today complain about the cost of living. This is understandable because nearly 80% of the employed persons earn much less than the average monthly per capita income of 36,000 rupees. As official data shows, the lowest 40% of the income earners secure only about 13% of the income whereas the share of the income of the richest 20% is over 54%. With a relatively low income, a young person cannot imagine how he or she could plan for a stable future in terms of decent housing, income security and social protection against much potential vulnerability. As the official statistics show, only about a quarter of the population is covered by social protection schemes like EPF and government pensions. Social protection schemes introduced in the recent past targeting the self-employed, the farmers, fishermen, etc. are not effective. The urge to join the state sector is largely motivated by the job security and social protection available to government employees. Though about 70% of the youth in the country aspire for government jobs, not many can find such jobs. The private sector does not create many regular, well-paid jobs either. So, the only possibility for most of the young people is to engage in irregular, low income activities in the informal sector. Many youths prefer better paid overseas employment rather than to engage in irregular low income activities in the country.

Yet, temporary overseas employment is not a substitute for stable, life-long employment that enables young people to plan their future. As is well known, temporary, episodic employment in overseas countries is extremely unsettling, particularly when the time comes to settle down with a permanent place of residence and a stable family life. Yet, economic hardships even encourage many migrant workers to resort to repeat migration, instead of occupying unstable, low income jobs at home.

So, the creation of stable, well remunerated employment with adequate social protection remains a major development challenge for the country. The way to face this is to expand the productive sectors of the economy through increased private and public investment. A steadily expanding private sector can reduce the pressure on the state sector which is not only highly unproductive and parasitic but also grossly overstaffed. The informal sector will always be the fall-back option for those who cannot find secure and regular employment in the formal sector. So the present employment structure should not be left alone, in the hope that it would be sorted out by itself. Strategic interventions are necessary to create a healthy balance between the sectors.

Yet, unfortunately, there is no national forum where the experts and planning professionals could sit around the table, take stock of the prevailing situation and come up with strategies to steer the country away from the present situation where mounting debts, exodus of skilled and unskilled labour, widening social disparities, steadily increasing cost of living and worsening labour issues threaten to create an unprecedented social and economic crisis in the country. This is not the time to treat these issues as part of the business cycle. They clearly point to a trend which is not very promising, to say the least. Yet, an honest and concerted national effort could help turn the country around within a reasonable time frame.