Sri Lanka Industrial Productivity up 10.9pct in 2010

21st April 2011, www.lankabusinessonline.com

Labour productivity in Sri Lanka's industry rose 10.6 percent in 2010 racing ahead of economy-wide gains which were dragged down slower increases in agriculture and services, according to official data.

Overall labour productivity in all three sectors rose 6.6 percent from a year earlier to 343,000 rupees. Labour productivity is measured as gross domestic product per worker in constant 2002 prices.

Sri Lanka's industry is largely private sector driven and large portion of factory industry is export oriented, making it subject to global competition. Some domestic industrialists who are close to rulers however are lobbying for protection.

The Central Bank says more efficient and reliable transport and power could help industry improve productivity.

Productivity growth in agriculture was 5.1 percent. In Sri Lanka there is a close nexus between rulers and farmers including landowners.

Each year the sector gets about 25 billion rupees in fertilizer subsidies and there is also heavy protection from imports leading to volatile prices and food insecurity for the entire population.

With high and volatile food prices, rulers have asked workers in industry and services to farm their backyards, front yards and grow vegetables instead of flowers, a situation not seen in Sri Lanka since the closed economy days of the 1970s.

Analysts say farmers in India and Pakistan are able to produce better quality food at much lower prices than Sri Lanka's farmers.

"There is further room to increase the productivity in the Agriculture sector through use of improved seed varieties, new technologies and innovations, and mechanisation, which could be promoted through farmer awareness by way of an effective extension service," the Central Banks said in its 2010 annual report.

"In addition, increasing value addition by promoting agro-based processing industries, improving awareness on proper usage of fertilizer, rehabilitation of irrigation networks, and infrastructure facilities would also help increase the productivity in the Agriculture sector."

The services sector showed the smallest improvement in productivity at 4.6 percent. Most of the government, rulers and state workers are in the services sector. There was no separate breakdown of the productivity of government.

GDP in government services is measured in terms of salaries as there is no measurable output in some state services. Last year however wages were restrained and total state workers fell slightly.

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Unemployment Declines to 5.4pct during Q2 of 2010 in Sri Lanka

08th November 2010, www.island.lk

Labour Force Statistics released by the Department of Census and Statistics showed unemployment had declined to 5.4 percent during the second quarter of this year, which saw the economy grow 8.5 percent. The number of people without jobs is estimated at 437,000.

Unemployment for the second quarter of last year amounted to 6.3 percent, or 496,000 people.

The total labour force increased to 7,613,267 during the second quarter of this year from 7,465,030 a year ago.

Agriculture, which accounts for 32 percent of the jobs, had 2,439,391employed, an increase against 2,382,913 a year ago.

The services sector saw employment increase to 3,378,672 from 3,168,224 a year ago. The sector accounts for 44.4 percent of the jobs.

Employment in the industrial sector declined to 1,795,204 from 1,913,893 a year ago and accounted for 23.6 percent of the jobs.

ILO Launches Statistics Database of Global Labour Market & Consumer Prices

21st October 2010, www.island.lk

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has launched a new statistics database containing timely information on the labour market and consumer prices aimed at providing vital information needed by policy makers faced with a global economic and social crisis.

The new database Short term indicators of the labour market (STI) was launched by the ILO Department of Statistics on World Statistics Day (20 October) and will be updated each month with the latest national data for indicators reflecting recent and short-term changes on the labour market.

"Governments, employers’ organizations, trade unions, labour market analysts and the media can now count on an improved labour statistics tool, allowing them to better monitor, understand, and analyze the recent events in labour markets", said Rafael Diez de Medina, Director of the ILO Department of Statistics.

The new database contains selected indicators for some 70 countries and territories that gather infra-annual information for the current year. In addition, 40 indicators are available disaggregated by sex. It can be found at http://laborsta.ilo.org/sti/sti_E.html

The new service also includes an interactive map containing most of the data organized by country and topic. Country profiles provide a quick and accurate snapshot of each country’s labour market situation, while information organized by topic allows for cross-country comparison and global analysis. Data are collected in close contact with National Statistical Offices and the process has been optimized in order to extract the greatest amount of information in the shortest period of time.

Especially interesting is the inclusion of seasonally adjusted sectoral data. In the first case, official adjustments were compiled for countries which adjust their data and the ILO has adjusted the time series in the rest of the cases.

The information has passed through quality controls but is nonetheless subject to revisions that the countries may undertake in the future. Users can obtain a printable page with latest data and information can be downloaded to Excel files.

Related Info:
View and download data and metadata for over 200 countries or territories from LABORSTA, an International Labour Office database on labour statistics operated by the ILO Department of Statistics