Work force is Lanka’s most valuable resource - ILO Country Director

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

The National Human Resource and Employment Policy (NHRDP) of Sri Lanka will play a critical role to promote and improve labour force employability and competitiveness of the enterprises. ILO Sri Lanka Office Country Director Donglin Li said at the inauguration of the NHRDP Technical Validation Workshop at the Taj Samudra Hotel, recently.

He said Sri Lanka is at a very important stage in its history and needs to optimize the scarce resources to its maximum and the most valuable resource is its own work force. A sound education, training policy and labour market policy could provide an important instrument to offset the negative impacts of globalization, while equipping people with the knowledge and skills to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in domestic and international labour market.

Li said in Sri Lanka, although a middle income level country, the unemployment rate among youth (15-24 years) as per the Sri Lanka labour force Survey, third quarter 2010 was about 19, much higher than overall unemployment rate in South Asia which is 10.3 percent.

“If looking at relations between education levels and unemployment, it appears that the higher educational level amongst youth, the higher the probability of being unemployed”, Li said.

“However, the development of the policy indicates country’s effort to ensure that development and growth also translate to better skills of the labour force, decent jobs and quality of life for the people through the development of its human resource capabilities and promotion of employment. He pledged the ILO’s full commitment and support to the government to formulate the policy with a wide scope”, he said.

“The completion of the policy is a great achievement but we still have a long way to go in terms of implementation”, he said.