President overstates share of women in the public sector

On 28 March 2019, Dinamina reported President Maithripala Sirisena making the following:

The latest available annual report of Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (2017), published by the Department of Census and Statistics, estimates total employment in the public sector (excluding the armed forces) as 1,178,708. Of this figure, the share of women is reported as 44.8%.

Similarly, the average estimate for total employment in the public sector, across the four quarterly reports available for 2018, is 1,158,478 (excluding the armed forces). Of this figure, the average for the share of women is 45.2%.

The data points to the share of women in the public sector being around 45%. The president claimed 70%. Therefore, we classify the president’s statement 
as FALSE.

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