Age 15 years and above ‘Working Age’ household population increases by over 350,000 in 2018

Sri Lanka’s Labour Force participation rate has declined by 2.3% from 2017 to 2018 and the employed population has declined by about 200,000 or 0.2 million, Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey of the Department of Census and Statistics outlines.

“The employment decline is significant among female compared to male” the report said.

“There is a significant increase in inactive population with an increase of about 0.53 million. The increase is mainly reported from female, youth (15 to 24) and elderly (age 60 and above)” the report stated.

Reported Labour Force participation rate is 51.8 in 2018. Given the estimated counts in 2018, estimated economically active population is around 8.4 million. About 5.5 million (6 5.1 %) of the economically active population are males. Economically inactive population accounts for about 7.8 million and of that majority are females (74.1%).

Further Sri Lanka’s working age household population (Age 15 years and above) has increased about 350,000 or 0.35 million from 2017 to 2018. The estimated unemployment rate is 4.4% and it is a 0.2% increase compared to 4.2% in 2017.

- Reporting by Devendra Francis