More jobs generated

Lakshmi de Silva

The total number of employed persons in the country during the first quarter of 2009 was 7.7 million while the active labour force during the same period was estimated at 8.2 million persons, the latest Census and Statistics Department survey stated.

The average literacy rate among the population was 91.4 percent. The literacy rate among males was 93.1 percent while among females it was 90 percent. The plantation sector recorded the lowest literacy rate of 75.3 percent while the rural sector literacy was 91.7 percent and the urban sector literacy 94.9 percent, the survey noted.

The unemployment rate for the same period excluding the northern province was 5.5 percent or around 450,000 people, the survey stated.

Of the employed population, male participation in employment was almost as twice as that of females with 64.2 percent employed males while 35.8 were females. The agriculture sector employed about 33.9 percent and the services sector employed 41.5 percent but there were also 74.1 percent unpaid family workers employed in the agriculture sector and also 25.9 percent unpaid family workers in the non-agriculture sectors, it said.

The agriculture sector shows a marked increase in its relative importance in the economy with 2,613,350 employed in agriculture compared to 2,410,307 an increase by about 200,000 people coming into the sector, the survey revealed.

The unemployment rate among youth for the first quarter of 2009 was 19.8 percent and the highest unemployment was reported in the age group of 15 to 24 years. The report said that unemployment among females was severe.