Local female labour force participation soars to 83%

The female labour force participation in Sri Lanka has seen an increase to 83 percent as of the third quarter of 2017.

Back in the day, the Sri Lankan society hardly recognised the importance of a woman’s role within the job market. Females did not get many opportunities to contribute towards the job market as the education became secondary factor to them. In addition, women have been confined in only doing unskilled activities.

However, nowadays society has changed on a tremendous scale, as gender inequality has considerably reduced and female labour participation within the country has shown a significant increase.

It has been observed that the labour female participation rate (LFPR) has risen due to several reasons, some being: Thousands of job openings in the job market, availability of secure and permanent full-time jobs, increase in education levels, quality jobs with clear career prospects and nondiscrimination in the labor market. Emerging online recruitment platforms in Sri Lanka have also contributed to reduce the unemployment rate within the country. For instance, the largest online recruitment platform in Sri Lanka ‘Dreamjobs.lk’ has shown immense support for job seekers to find their dream job in a rapid manner. In the early stages, men dominated the job market and better paying sector jobs in the country. This concept has shown a major change in the recent past as the female labour engagement rate has begun to increase and be exclusively active within the job market.

Apart from these facts, a vast number of women have an interest to enter the job market because they get the flexible opportunity of maintaining their work life and balancing it as they get easy access to day care facilities which provide high security for their children. In addition to this, different types of job categories and high salary rates also encourage women to participate in the labour market.