SL’s outward labour migration down by over 57% in first half

By Nishel Fernando
Sri Lanka’s outward labour migration declined by over 57 percent in the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2019 while estimated 40,000 Sri Lankan migrant workers returned to the country amid COVID-19 infused crisis in their host countries.

“In the current global setting, our labour migrants are facing additional challenges, which include loss of employment and reduction of earnings. Furthermore, we have witnessed a decline in the outbound travel of labour migrants by 57.2 percent in the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019. This stands out in comparison to around 200,000 Sri Lankans who previously sought foreign employment annually,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena said.

He made these remarks at the launch of United Nation’s (UN) migration network in Sri Lanka last week. According to him, over 40,000 Sri Lankans, including 17,861 migrant workers from the Middle East, have been repatriated to the country amid job losses and contract expiration.

The Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) recently warned that the country could face a US$ 11 billion overall shortfall in remittance inflows, over the next two years, as Sri Lankans leaving for overseas employment is expected to decline to 50,000 this year, compared to around 200,000 departures last year.  As per current estimates, there are around 1.5 million Sri Lankan migrants working overseas and over half of them are based in Middle Eastern region.

During the first wave of the pandemic early this year, the government launched the ‘Contact Sri Lanka’ web portal to gather empirical data on the immediate requirements of these workers, and to guide and provide information and to assist them in emergencies.  Gunawardena noted that over 98,000 Sri Lankans have registered in this database across the Middle East, Southern Europe and to the Far East, Malaysia, Korea and Japan.