Sujata Gamage, the Team Leader of the Human Capital Research Program has started a weekly column in the Financial Times in English and in the government newspaper, Dinamina, in Sinhala. Here is an excerpt from her first column in FT.
But, how do our youth really feel about the state of affairs in their country?
There is a widely held belief that this age group was instrumental in turning the tide against President Rajapaksa in the 2015 presidential election, but, we have little concrete evidence. Other countries such as UK, Australia and Malaysia carry out regular youth surveys but we don’t. We can get some indication of the lives of our youth through the quarterly labour force survey of Sri Lanka.
The unemployment rate in Sri Lanka has remained at 4-6% in the last 10 years or so but, the unemployment rate for the 15-24 age group has remained high at 19-20%. Interestingly, the rate drops to 8-9% when this cohort reaches the 25-29 age group.
– See more at: http://www.ft.lk/article/456751/Election-promises-and-the-youth-vote#sthash.XjBtdB7l.dpuf
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