Thursday, 16th October 2014
Disna Mudalige
Policies should be evolved to create a win-win situation for countries with a labour deficit and those with labour surplus, External Affairs Minister Prof G. L. Peiris said.
He was addressing the “3rd Asia-EU Dialogue on Labour Migration” in Colombo yesterday, which brought together the 11 member countries of the Colombo Process and the 28 EU Member states together to gain a better understanding of the key trends and issues underlying labour markets of both migrant-sending countries of Asia and migrant-receiving countries of the EU. The minister observed labour deficit in many sectors has become problematic for European countries owing to their low demographic growth rate, while the 11 member states of the Colombo Process, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam have become labour exporting countries to Europe.
The minister said policies beneficial to both sides should be formulated, adding that accurate factual information on the existing vacuum where labour migration is useful should be identified in this regard.
The minister said identifying the appropriate areas for labour migration would help train and prepare people for those jobs. He further said the people who are educated in the West need to be able to adapt to the environment back in their own countries.
Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Minister and Colombo Process Chair-in-Office Dilan Perera said measures have been taken to upgrade labour migration from non-skilled labour to semi-skilled and skilled labour, adding that the ‘brain-drain’ needs to be converted to ‘brain-gain’ by allowing the migrant workers to improve their knowledge and technology know-how by working in other countries. He observed the Europe has a promising new market for labour migration.
Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare Ministry Secretary Col. Nissanka N. Wijeratne said Asia would be the main source of manpower for Europe in 10 years to come. He said among the 28 countries of the EU, 11 nations have a negative population growth rate, adding that only four countries of the EU have population growth rates exceeding 1 percent. He said contrastingly many of the Asian countries have positive population growth, rates adding that those countries possess a large skilled youth population.
Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Regional Coordinator and Advisor Rabab Fatima and European Union Ambassador to Sri Lanka David Daly also spoke.
From : http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local/low-demographic-growth-main-cause-labour-deficit-west
