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“How can we afford a degree when we cannot even afford dinner?” a disillusioned youth asks
View(s):- This year, at least 300,000 Lankans, including professionals, have left the country for work overseas; highest number since Independence
By Tharushi Weerasinghe
In Sri Lanka’s post-Independence history, the record for the highest number of migrant workers to leave the country for work overseas was marked this year.
The number of migrant workers leaving topped the 300,000 mark last Sunday and was increasing, according to Labour and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara.
According to him, this figure tallied with the Foreign Employment Bureau’s (FEB) target for this year.
Some 60 percent of migrant workers were males and 40 percent females. Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were the top four destinations in that order.
Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) Spokesman G.S. Yapa said that as of December 15, 13,583 professionals also had left Sri Lanka. This was unusually high when compared with pre-pandemic years, he said.
Around 60 percent of workers, however, were still from the low skilled, under skilled and domestic aid sectors. Domestic house workers accounted for 24 percent of migrant workers and this remained steady with the numbers from before the pandemic.
“Most professionals also leave through other routes,” Mr. Yapa noted. He said he believed the number of professionals who would had left the country must be at least three times the number recorded at the SLBFE.
Sri Lankans were migrating in numbers to look for “greener pastures” abroad to escape from multiple crises at home. A 33-year-old Business Consultant, Anupa Wickramarachchi, was taking the higher studies route abroad and hoped to work in Sweden for a few years after he completed his studies.
“Better pay, access to basic facilities, and higher quality education are my primary motives,” he said. Access to quality healthcare was also becoming an increasing cause for migration as Sri Lankan hospitals grappled with shortages of even essential and life saving drugs.
For people who had already moved overseas, not being around friendly faces at home was difficult, but given the choice between that and starving families at home, they felt that going was a better choice. Young people especially were disillusioned about the future of the country.
“I wanted to pursue Information Technology for my higher studies, but how can we afford a degree when we cannot even afford dinner,” said a 20-year-old girl who recently migrated to Kuwait.
She is currently doing a software job with skills she learned online.
“The work is difficult but the pay is good and living conditions are better,” she said.
For less skilled workers however, life can get more difficult.
“I see really old people who have obviously lied about their age to go overseas doing hard manual labour and it is sad to see,” said another managerial level worker from Kuwait.
These workers usually handle construction jobs and sometimes work for 48 hours at a stretch when other workers insist on working overtime.
Even highly qualified individuals find themselves having to start from scratch, said a 38-year-old father of two, who works as a senior engineer at an NGO office. He said he had enrolled in a Master’s Degree programme in Australia as that is the easiest way to take his family there.
“My wife will work there to keep us afloat while I go back to school,” he said.
Remittances sent by
Sri Lankan workers abroad increased to US$ 384.4 million last month.
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