News: Talking Economics

Over 4,000 youth gathered along Havelock Road near the Police Field Force Headquarters on Monday to apply for jobs in South Korea, following an announcement by the government under a bilateral foreign employment scheme with South Korea; an arrangement that could potentially provide employment in Korea to thousands of Sri Lankans annually. This centre in Colombo was one of 29 centres islandwide set up by the Ministry of Foreign Employment that are distributing applications for Korean employment (particularly language tests), and attracted youth from various districts who had queued since afternoon the previous day. While registration of applicants began at around 8am, by 11.15am the officials along with Police support, announced to those queued that the centre is now closed as the maximum number of 3,500 applicants had been registered. Just prior to this, and the slight tension that ensued following the announcement, IPS researchers conducted a snap survey of a sample of 41 youth in the queue, to get some insight into their profile, education level, employment status, and reasons for seeking migrant work in South Korea. This article discusses the key findings, supplemented by background information on youth unemployment and foreign employment migration from current research by the IPS.