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Returned workers offered cash leg-up to start work
Outright grants of up to Rs. 50,000 will be offered to migrant workers who left their jobs over the pandemic and now wish to make a new start in their home country.
Around 20,000 migrant workers have returned home since the government began a repatriation process in May. Pic by T.K.G. Kapila
Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) General Manager Mangala Randeniya said the funds would be given out under the government’s COVID-19 Action Plan to help returnees with self-employment.
It has found through recent surveys that four in five of these workers want to re-integrate into the local job market.
Others, still bent on overseas work, will be offered training to widen their skills and gain better jobs when the pandemic crisis is over.
Around 20,000 migrant workers have returned home since the government began a repatriation process in May. Most came from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Another 30,000 are awaiting repatriation but last week the government stopped all repatriation following the emergence of new clusters of COVID-19 in several parts of the country.
In pre-COVID times, some 15,000 people left every month for jobs overseas. The country has lost more than 100,000 job opportunities overseas since the lockdowns began in March 2020.
The SLBFE is evaluating the number of returned workers who want to engage in self-employment. Questionaires have been distributed to around 10,000 returnees asking whether they wish to return overseas and, if not, about their future plans.
There are four categories of returnees: those laid off due to an economic downturn in the countries where they had jobs; those underemployed; those in fear of potential job loss; those who left their jobs to be safe from the pandemic.
Many of them are males, predominantly in the service sector.
It is learnt that Sri Lankan maids who work in households face fewer problems and have opted to stay back. Only those with documentation and overstay problems wish to return home. In Kuwait, workers are taking advantage of an amnesty offered by that government.
When the questionnaires are processed an assessment will be made on the amount of funding needed for self-employment start-ups and training. The money will come from the SLBFE’s budget along with assistance from the International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation for Migration.
Returned workers who want to return overseas are requested to register with the bureau, which is in contact with recruiting agencies and ministries in those countries willing to re-employ Sri Lankans.
The bureau said new job opportunities have emerged in Abu Dhabi and Romania in the service sector and, once the pandemic eases, will resume the dispatch of workers to those countries.