Title: A Labour Force Projection for Sri Lanka
Description: The labour force or the economically active population is generally defined to comprise all those persons who contribute to the supply of labour for the production of economic goods and services, including not only those employed at the time of investigation, but also those unemployed but available for work. The purpose of labour force projections is to obtain a reasonable estimate of future labour supply for meeting planning needs.

The projections show that the total labour force in Sri Lanka is expected to increase from the estimated 5,750 million in 1981 to 8,577 million in 2001 and to nearly ten million in the year 2011. the rate of growth of the labour force will be higher than the rate of growth of population throughout the projection period. This is due to the past high growth rates of population and the increasing level of participation assumed particularly for females. The female labour force will grow at a higher rate during the entire projection period. The rate of growth of labour force is expected to decline after 2001 due to the decline in the population entering the working ages.

During the period 1981-86, there will be on an average 234,000 persons entering the labour force annually and about 107,000 withdrawing annually resulting in an average annual net addition of about 127,000 persons. The net additions to the labour force is expected to increase to 159,000 per annum during 1996-2001 and then decline to about 117,000 during 2006-2011. Thus, it will be seen that the problem of employment creation up to end of this decade is compounded by both demographic factors as well as the likely increase in participation. If current unemployment rate is halved by 2001, on an average about 152,000 employment opportunities will have to be created annually during the next two decades.