Colombo, undisputed number one choice for work draws competition

It is well known that the Internet increases the efficiency of labour markets by allowing companies to connect with a larger number of professionals faster and at a lower cost. It also enables job seekers to access a vast number of filtered job opportunities within minutes, anytime, anywhere. In 2010, 12 out of 100 people in Sri Lanka had access to the Internet; this number reached nearly 30 by 2015.

One only has to look at the evolution of the country's Internet penetration rate to see that Sri Lanka's job market has increasingly been able to benefit from online recruitment and job hunting tools to optimise its processes. But who in Sri Lanka has been adopting those new tools so far?

Where do people apply to when using online job platforms? Do professionals living in the provinces tend to stay in smaller cities or does the majority make the big move to Colombo? everjobs.lk, Sri Lanka's fastest growing online career platform, has been a major player in the national labour market for the last two years and is able to give some valuable insights in this regard.

Sri Lanka's first adopters

Out of the more than 100,000 job seekers registered on the company's website, 40 per cent are professionals based in Colombo. The second largest city of origin is Kandy, with close to 8,000 registered job seekers coming from that region. In comparison to other cities' residents, Colombo is most exposed to the newest technology and part of the economic development of the country. Thus it comes as no surprise that professionals are more comfortable with using online job search tools in order to find a new position. The situation is similar when analyzing the tool usage by employers. Out of the more than 55,000 jobs posted since the company's existence, nearly 65 per cent are or were located in Colombo. Does that mean that job seekers in Colombo only apply to job opportunities within the city?

And, is the above information a hint that companies posting job vacancies based in Colombo receive applications only from professionals in the city?

With over 300,000 processed applications in the last two years, the company has a large sample to analyse where people want to work, also considering where they come from.

Colombo - number one work destination of all job applications sent via everjobs.lk, 100,000 were made from Colombo to Colombo, meaning that people who live in the capital apply to jobs within the city. There is, however, a large inflow of applications from outside Colombo. Since its existence, the company registered nearly 12,000 applications from Kandy, 10,000 from Gampaha, as well as an equal number from DehiwalaMount Lavinia. In total, Colombo's vacancies received 221,000 applications. Overall, the trend is clear - job seekers want to work in Colombo, no matter what part of Sri Lanka they come from. People apply from as far as Jaffna, which is reflected in 3,000 applications. The second most popular destination for job seekers is Kandy, with less than 9,000 applications.

Job seekers and companies in rural areas go offline

And what does this look like on the corporate side? There are more than 4,000 companies that have worked or currently use everjobs' services. Nearly 2,800 of those are located in Colombo - that's 70 per cent. The rest is relatively spread out around Sri Lanka. But why is that so? "Given that the Internet penetration rate is considerably lower in provinces outside of Colombo, companies in the more rural areas of the country tend to use other, more traditional recruitment methods to fill their vacancies. Vice versa, job seekers are accustomed to looking for new positions the old fashioned way - through relatives and friends and by actively approaching companies in person," says Daniel Topolanek, Head of Business Development of everjobs.lk.

Competition

The government actively works on developing other cities in the country in order to provide alternatives for job seekers. Having been promised a US$147 million development credit plus $55 million additional financing from the World Bank in 2016, Sri Lanka's Strategic Cities Development Project aims to increase the country's competitiveness by focussing on the nation's secondary cities - Kandy, Galle and Jaffna. This will likely lead to job seekers switching, or at least, additionally using, online job search tools during their job hunt, as well as to companies posting their vacancies online in order to fill their positions.