Sri Lanka’s outward labour migration has topped the 100,000 mark so far during the year, with an increasing number of Sri Lankans moving to take up foreign employment opportunities to escape from the worsening economic and political crises in the country, SL Foreign Employment Bureau said.
Hundreds of Sri Lankans are leaving the country for greener pastures due to inadequate incomes and skyrocketing prices, selling off of national assets and haphazard governance along with the economic crisis made by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime.
The passport office quaes, heavy demand for immigration lawyers, and many grievances about daily life aired on social media are pointing to the fact that most people are not happy with the current corrupt and inefficient government ,civil society activists said.
Many people who seek foreign jobs feel there is no hope in a country riddled with corrupt politicians, systemic discrimination and an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor.
The less fortunate are forced to endure harsh conditions as migrant labourers working for demanding employers in Middle Eastern countries households, factories and offices while the more educated and privileged get to try their luck in a Western country where the weather, quality of life and unequal treatment are challenges.
A recent survey showed that increasing numbers of Sri Lankans want to leave the country, more than at any time in the past two years .
About one in four Sri Lankans would like to migrate if they had the chancea civel society activist said adding that the youth and the educated want this most, with around half of them wanting to leave the country.
According to the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA), over 100,000 Sri Lankans departed the country for foreign employment opportunities from the January 1 to April 8, 2022 period.
“At present, there’s large demand for Sri Lankan migrant workers, in particular from the Middle Eastern countries and there’s also a large uptick in supply with what’s happening in the country. Overall, the departures for foreign employment grew by a record 126.8 percent to 121,795 in 2021, from 53,711 in 2020.
In particular, there was an increase in the share of professional, middle level, clerical and related, skilled and semi-skilled foreign employment categories compared to the unskilled and housemaid categories last year.
In particular, the share of housemaids in overall foreign employment departures fell to 24.1 percent in 2021, from 28.5 percent, although the number of females leaving for housemaid employment opportunities nearly doubled in absolute terms.
Arshad reasoned that the reimposition of the Family Background Report (FBR), which has been viewed by some to be gender discriminatory, as the main cause for the relative decline.
“With the economic crisis getting worse, there are many female migrants, who are seeking for foreign employment opportunities. However, a considerable number of them struggle to obtain the FBR.
Therefore, some of them are resorting to unofficial avenues to secure foreign employment opportunities, without registering with the SLBFE and Immigration and Emigration Department at the airport,” he elaborated.
The Middle East region, led by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, continued to dominate as the key foreign employment destinations in 2021, by accounting for 84.8 percent of the total departures for foreign employment.
