How Can Sri Lanka Create More Jobs?
Friend at my old job, after an all-nighter.
The IPS, which I know mainly through Anushka Wijesinha, is holding a thing tomorrow on how Sri Lanka can create more jobs. Or even what that means. Everybody wants a job, to move out of the house, to fix the house, to expand it. Maybe get a motorbike, a van, a car. No matter how much infrastructure you build, if people don’t have jobs they can’t use it. So jobs are important.
In America all the politicians talk about creating jobs but, short of expanding government service, they’re actually not very good at it (see This American Life). There are certain things they can do to get out of the way, but if politicians actually want to keep promises, they should just hire more people to work at the government. That’s anathema in the west, but that’s what eastern governments do all the time. It obviously has physical limits, which I think we’ve pretty much reached in Sri Lanka.
So, what basic things can a government do to make job creation possible? Aside from giving Mitt Romney tax cuts? What does the World Bank recommend for South Asia? The Three Es. Electricity, Education and Entry/Exit. ie, power, brain power, and firing power. Which makes sense. Sri Lanka electricity is spotty at best (my power kicked it today and has already fried a hard disk). Education is a false promise, as higher education leads to higher unemployment. Entry/Exit (ie, firing and hiring people) is also damn difficult.
When I left Dialog they had to pay me a years salary and I had to sign literally 15 documents renouncing various rights to sue. Which was great for me, but obviously bad for business. Note that this wasn’t just me, Dialog offered a Voluntary Resignation Scheme to all its employees, because they simply couldn’t point to non-performing employees and directly fire them. It’s a major problem, and many companies don’t hire out of risk aversion.
Anyways. I think those ideas are fine. I would add healthcare. And public transit. But if education and energy worked we’d kinda be OK.
Anyways, you can stream the thing tomorrow from 9h30 to 14h and, more immediately, unless you’re reading this in the future, you can leave your own ideas how to improve job creating in SL. They have a Google Moderator thing.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
Does that mean the market for private contractors is pretty good?
Usually when it’s difficult to fire people you find contractors/freelancers doing fairly well on project based work. Just wondering if that’s the case.
I’d say yes. I’ve been hired on contract. People are more comfortable with that
well the education is clearly in a wrong path. While some universities and some faculties do produce much sought graduates, others are (mainly arts) are stuck with the numbers. We really don’t need this much art stream graduates.
While there are many jobs in various industries for technical people (non-white collar) such as mechanics, welders, heavy machine operators, builders (“mason bass” in common term) etc. there is a certain social stigma about these jobs (even though they may make much more money than some of the white color job people).
in/out thing, I really don’t no what to say. Many people do say that we have strong labor laws on the other hand the reason for removing GSP from US was some labor issue (Something like bad treatment of labors).
i agree with u on that. In SL technical jobs like mechanics, welders, heavy machine operators are not given much importance. Technical jobs can offer you very good salaries though we do not have enough people training for that.
I worked in a fcatory once and there we wanted to recruit lathe machine operators and they pay handsomely. But the company could not recruit any good technicians. And then they wanted to train their existing staff at German Tec Ratmalana but they didnt start any training as they did not have enough students to start the course. And our ppl, young men die to go to S. Korea for very small jobs. Had they done a proper training course on any technical job they could have gone for a better job with better pay.
How to create jobs in SL is a very important topic though it is much less discussed because we lankans have to discuss forever about the power devolution and ethnic strife. These things hold us back without letting us to focus on other important issues like this. However when talking about job creation improving entreprenial skills is a must. Because in growing economies entreprenuars are the ones who create jobs. i think we lack entreprenaurs in this country.
Another thing is we dont have a sound manufacturing base. Some of our imports in the country can be produced here locally and we lose millions of dollars for importing milk powder, rice, meat products, and now even coconut. These sectors can contribute a lot to the economy if we can manage well.
I believe it would be good if we can revive our saree knitting industry back. See most of our women spend a lot of money on sarees. And we can create it a good career for women especially.
It’s sad that providers of essential services such as electricians, plumbers and masons are not considered “professionals”. My domestic’s son who is a mason earns on average more than I do. It’s also a problem finding a reputable/capable plumber/electrician etc… you need to call up someone and it’s always someone’s someone’s recommendation. This puts it to words better:
http://nisadas.com/journal/2012/02/where-do-you-find-good-help-these-days/
Charles Eisenstein argues that job and GDP growth does not necessarily translate into a better life for everyone…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB88JuDA5Uw
[...] the fish, old St. John’s Market. IPS did a survey on how Sri Lankans think we can create more jobs. The results are out now. Check the link for some [...]