Skilled foreigners to compete with Sri Lankans for jobs...
There is a perception that the government will allow skilled foreigners to compete with our citizens for good jobs. The Government Medical Officers Association has said professionals such as doctors will be disadvantaged through the influx of human resources to the country through the proposed free trade agreements (FTAS).
However, middle- to higherskilled foreign labour in the workforce can complement workers by bringing along the relevant skills to create new industries and job opportunities. Skilled foreign manpower can help to fill the labour gap and facilitate the transfer of skills to locals. This allows us to anchor new industries such as biomedical sciences, digital media animation, components manufacturing and aerospace. Equipped with the appropriate skills and expertise, over time, locals will be able to take on the good jobs created within these industries.
Based on industry surveys, at least a minimum of 400,000 new jobs will be available at all levels in the hotel, tourism and industrial sectors per annum in the next three years. According to a survey conducted by University of Colombo Arts Faculty Dean Prof. Athula Ranasinghe, the unfilled vacancies in the apparel sector was 58 percent of the total vacancies, 20 percent in the food industry and 33 percent in other manufacturing sectors.
Policy interventions
Therefore, the real issue is not about jobs but good jobs and finding skilled and semiskilled people to fill those jobs. The National Human Resource Development Council of Sri Lanka has identified five broad issues that need to be addressed.
The first challenge is to attract more women employees into the workforce. To achieve this target, there is a need to provide an accommodating ecosystem to attract and retain women in the workplace. The current participation is only 38 percent, from the estimated 8.5 million. Almost 2.8 million of the labour force constitutes economically inactive women. This is in spite of the fact that educated and qualified women outnumber men.
Secondly, urgent labour law reforms are needed to drive employment creation, greater productivity, innovation, human resource development and FDI.
Thirdly, Sri Lanka lacks adequate vocational and technical skills in the labour force. A high proportion of firms in Sri Lanka identify a shortage of vocational and technical skills as a major constraint, compared to other middle-income and developing countries. The drive for industrial growth is especially hindered by the shortage of technically skilled labour. Therefore, technical and vocational education and training must be made relevant in consultation with the private sector.
Fourthly, improving access to higher education; we spend less than 0.4 percent of our gross domestic product on higher education. We need to drive innovation in higher education, particularly online and by using modern technology including robots that will make training cost effective and in a more flexible, personalized, than the present manner, in which the traditional degrees or postgraduate courses are delivered.
Lastly, building the talent supply for industry, generally young Lankans shun taking skilled and non-skilled jobs with a monthly pay of around Rs.25,000-40,000 in factories and hotels but they tend to prefer to work as trishaw drivers instead, currently we have around 1.2 million trishaw drivers. Many institutions are struggling to fill vacancies. The government needs to work with industry to address this serious issue. For example, in Malaysia, rubber tappers were given gainful employment in the electronic industry after completion of their training.
Need to act
Most of the new jobs will come from the tourism, construction, services and information communication technology (ICT) sectors. Therefore, we need to enhance access to ICT degrees by linking with non-state higher education providers through the Sri Lanka Association for Software and Service Companies (SLAACOM) under the direction of the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and creating access for both local and foreign fee-levying students and providing a loan system.
The country projection is 150,000 new jobs in ICT in five years. The present maximum is 18,500 (state and non-state). The tourism sector would also create around 350,000 direct and indirect new jobs by 2020 and the yearly intake is only around 14,000 (state and non-state).
Sri Lanka’s construction, manufacturing, tourism service sectors would find it extremely difficult to grow speedily in the coming years because of a shortage of semi and skilled labour. Committee after committee is studying this. The outcomes so far have not delivered the required outcomes.
Another key reason for this problem is there is a huge shortage of both skilled and unskilled labour, due to the unwillingness of people to join industry and on the other hand, people looking to go overseas. We are steadily becoming a country that is not able to cater to the demand for workers in mid-professional, skilled and semi-skilled job categories. The companies facing problems to continue their work have already gained permission to employ Indian and Chinese workers in small numbers. One option would be to move industry to the areas where the required labour resides but this needs careful planning.
Our labour shortage problem is largely due to the absence of poor manpower planning over the years, too many agencies and commissions involved in formulating national skills development policies, lack of career guidance, inadequate number of effective training facilities and lack of on-the-job training programmes for most school leavers.
Foreign labour to fill gaps
Today our youth in the country are clearly distancing themselves from agriculture and construction fields. Therefore, if international firms need foreign workers to fill the gaps and complete projects on time in accordance with their agreements with the government, we need to open up. Sri Lanka would definitely need to attract foreign talent and be open to welcoming workers from overseas to plug immediate as well as emerging talent gaps.
Manpower shortages in the construction sector is driven not only by low wages on offer but rather by shifting aspirations and work ethic that is not conductive to occupations seen as hard labour. To change this attitude among our youth will be very difficult. Therefore, importing labour for specific projects, periods and skill gaps, would help to fill critical short-term skill gaps but a clear strategy is essential for growing our ‘own’ talent pool.
While our labour market gaps are largely attributed to skill mismatches and poor planning, we need to now look beyond the labour and skill agenda and move towards a new agenda for business growth, job creation and improving our competitiveness.