Sri Lanka to send close to 10,000 skilled workers abroad

• 6,000 opportunities in Europe, 4,000 jobs in Japan

Undeterred by declining migrant worker numbers, Telecommunication, Foreign Employment and Sports Minister Harin Fernando yesterday said that the country was now in the process of training workers to fulfil 10,000 vacancies in Japan and a number of European countries.

“The opportunities are mostly in caregiving and the construction sector,” Minister Fernando told Daily FT. 

Fernando, defending the decision to impose a minimum wage for foreign employment, said that the focus had now shifted from just increasing numbers to increasing the quality of workers going abroad.

“I am not bothered by the drop in migrant worker numbers as we are focusing on increasing the number of skilled workers. We have imposed a minimum wage of $ 300 and we will stick by it, so we should focus on sending more skilled workers,” he said.

“The country has already secured 6,000 skilled vacancies from Europe and another 4,000 jobs for caregiver positions from Japan. We have already sent a few batches to Japan and we are now in the process of training more workers. At any given time, we have about 200 workers training in our centres,” Fernando added.

“The biggest issue the Government is facing is in training the workers in the language of the host country,” he noted. 

However, the training centres run by the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment are running below capacity, although some centres are equipped with modern resources to train large numbers.

The Government will also do away with the discriminatory Family Background Report which places restrictions on female workers with children under the age of five from travelling abroad.

Recommendations have been made to the Cabinet to revise the program and put in place a system where children of migrant workers are cared for during their absence with State supervision, Fernando told Daily FT. The regulation will apply to both male and female migrant workers.

“The proposal which was presented to Cabinet last week will be discussed in Cabinet today,” he said.

“The President wanted one week to study the proposed system and approve it, he will let us know this week,” Fernando added. (CD)