In our society, employment decides not just the income, but also the social status of an individual. Therefore, finding a decent job is everyone’s dream.
On the other hand, not everyone is capable of achieving this dream. According to Central Bank of Sri Lanka, less than 8% of total workforce of Sri Lanka is doing what is normally termed as ‘white collar jobs’. The percentage of Senior Officials and Managers is 1.6%. Another 6.3% are termed as ‘professionals’ . This might include teachers and nurses too. The vast majority of 92% are involved in variety of jobs as industry workers, clerks, sales and service workers, farmers and fishermen, craft and related workers and other elementary occupations, which we broadly categorise as ‘blue colour jobs’.
Obviously a blue collar job cannot be not anybody’s first choice. Given all opportunities, everyone likes to be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a pilot or a higher government officer. However in reality they end up much below. The question is whether we do something about this or just forget it as one’s karma.
How would we bridge the employment gap? Is there a way we can have most, if no everyone do what they like to do and earn a reasonable income?
The approaches of the key political parties are extremely different on this issue.
SLFP’s response to employment issue is to absorb youth into government jobs in bulk. One reason for this is SLFP’s inability to develop the private sector, thus creating job opportunities there. On the other hand, it is also a good strategy to provide jobs to party henchmen and be sure of their vote. Government jobs do not pay well, but to some, it offers a social status. For these purely sociological and psychological reasons enough people are ready to work for government even for a meager salary. It is this situation SLFP (and later JVP too) exploits.
However what is good for SLFP/JVP as a political parties can be detrimental for the nation.
What is wrong with creating jobs in bulk in the government ? The money used to provide such job opportunities does not come from SLFP politicians’ ‘budale’. That is the public money earned through the tax we all pay and kept for the development of the country. The inevitable result is using that money for creating jobs hinder development work. The only other options would be to find money either by increasing the money supply (=printing money) or taking commercial loans at higher interest rates. In long term both these measures bring no positive impact on the economy.
On the other hand this is not good for government as well. This short sighted move has already made Sri Lanka one of the highest per capita public service workforce in Asia. We have one government servant per every 20 people. This is no joke. This is a burden to be carried by the people. This is to much for a small economy like ours. From where we find all that money? On the other hand, it does little good for those who are employed. Even they have to live a hand to mouth existence.
The UNP approach of employment creation is different. UNP does not believe in over expanding the public sector, especially if it is at the increased cost to the citizens. Instead it believes in developing the private sector so that it can absorb more people. That is how UNP created more than 200,000 jobs in the short period of 2 years from 2002-3. All this came no cost to the public, and definitely not by compromising the development. The number of people working in the formal private sector is three times higher what it is the public sector.
Past UNP governments on many occasions have created jobs for the people, when that was necessary.
One example is the introduction of three wheelers. This was done in early 1980s by then President J. R. Jayawardene. There were only few taxies then and their charges were too high for most. Three wheelers on the other hand, in addition to providing job opportunities also offered a cheaper alternative transport for public. UNP can be really proud of the fact that more than 300,000 individuals and their families today make a living through this self employment.
Photo: Running a three-wheeler is a popular self employment in Bandaragama area. Not everybody knows that all this was possible thanks to a UNP government of President J. R. Jayawardene.
However, UNP does not believe in confining youth to jobs of that level. Always our intention is to provide better opportunities for those who deserve. This is done not only by expanding the educational facilities but also creating markets.
E-Sri Lanka was one program launched under the UNP government for creating few hundreds of thousands of jobs in the IT sector following the example of India. That was after then Prime Minister realized that there can be enough opportunities in Sri Lanka for IT and IT enabled service job opportunities. Unfortunately he was not given an opportunity to drive that initiative for long. After few key milestones like setting up the HSBC call centre at Rajagiriya, (that itself created nearly 2,500 jobs) the government was prematurely dissolved and the employment creation did not proceed at the initially planned level. E-Sri Lanka program of the other hand was highly politicised and failed to create the job opportunities Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has envisaged then.
Photo: HSBC call centre in Hexagon Building, Rajagiriya. Then Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe was instrumental in establishing this which now provides thousands of job opportunities
I have often being asked what sort of solution we would bring to the unemployment issue. I categorically say that we do not just want to create employment opportunities for the sake of creating them. Creating artificial job opportunities in government does more harm than good. Why absorb skilled youth to government to do clerical type of jobs when they can find enough decent well paid jobs in the private sector?
What we like to see is youth engaging in decent jobs they like to do, not any job. If one wants to be a doctor or computer scientist it is the responsibility of the government to provide them that opportunity. That does not mean they should be employed at public sector. The private sector of course can offer them higher salaries and better perks. However, it is the duty of the government to create that market. That can only be done by a government that opens its door to world economy. A government that discourages the private sector and does not know how to run economy will never be able to create job opportunities at large numbers. Neither such a government can provide decent jobs.
As a teacher who has taught tens of thousands of students, I know the aspirations of youth. It is not boasting, but a fact that nearly 2,500 lawyers of today are my former students at Centre for Professional Studies. I am happy that I could make a worthwhile contribution in assisting them finding jobs that they wanted to do.
My own contribution however, will not end there. We have more comprehensive plans to guide creative and intelligent to find the best opportunities in the job market. In near future you will hear about the series of career guidance seminars that we plan to organize in the Kalutara district.
