President Dissanayaka correct when corrected on software engineers

President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka advocates for an increased presence of professionals in the IT sector. To support this argument, he claims that Sri Lanka has a lower proportion of “software engineers” compared to global figures.

To verify the claim, FactCheck.lk consulted several sources, including the Evans Data Corporation (EDC), the Sri Lanka IT-BPM Industry: State of the Industry 2019/20 report by SLASSCOM and PWC Sri Lanka, World Bank population data, and World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

The statement made by the president is problematic for two reasons. 

First, the numbers quoted by the president, if accurate, do not support his overall claim. 

According to the president’s figures, Sri Lanka produces 39 software engineers for every 10,000 people, whereas globally, only 32 software engineers are produced per 10,000 people. These figures suggest that Sri Lanka has a higher proportion of software engineers than the global average—which is the opposite of what the president claims.

Second, the president’s use of the term “software engineers” is unclear.

For Sri Lanka, he cites 85,000, which is the figure reported by SLASSCOM (88,051 to be precise) for the entire “IT workforce” in Sri Lanka. For the global figure, he cites 26 million, which is a number provided by EDC for only “developers”. However, if the term “software engineers” was used to refer “developers” it cannot simultaneously be used refer to “IT workforce,” and vice-versa. This is because “developers” are a subset of the “IT workforce”, which includes a broader range of roles in the industry. Therefore, the two numbers cited by the president are not comparable against each other.

However, if we interpret the president as referring to the entire IT workforce, the correct global figure (as of 2022) would be 68 million, according to the World Bank. This supports the assertion that Sri Lanka’s ratio of 40 in the IT workforce per 10,000 people is well below the global average of 85. 

If on the other hand, we interpret the president as referring to “developers”, the correct figure for Sri Lanka would be 34,340, as per SLASSCOM. This supports the assertion that Sri Lanka’s ratio of 16 developers/software engineers per 10,000 people is well below the global average of 32 developers per 10,000 people.

Although the president’s use of terminology and figures have been inconsistent and inaccurate, his overall argument stands when either one of the data points that he uses is corrected. Sri Lanka’s proportion of both developers and the total IT workforce is much lower than global averages.

Therefore, we classify the president’s claim as PARTLY TRUE.

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