New overseas job markets to be explored

by Uditha KUMARASINGHE

The Foreign Employment and Welfare Ministry has launched a new foreign employment promotion scheme to explore new overseas markets.

The Ministry has focused attention on countries such as Qatar, UAE, Jordan, South Korea, Italy, Rumania, Israel, Cyprus, Malaysia and Singapore, Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera told the Sunday Observer.

The Minister said his recent visit to Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi was fruitful.

The Ministry is exploring the possibility of setting up a foreign employment scheme with Israel.

"I will also go to Italy by the end of this month to sign a Government to Government Memorandum of Understanding on foreign employment", he said.

His Ministry will work with new countries such as Rumania for foreign employment. "Cyprus which was one of our productive markets does not look very rosy at present.

We are also looking very strongly at Cyprus. Malaysia is another market which is growing very fast. It has a large number of job opportunities. The Malaysian market also had some problems due to misunderstanding between some of our embassy officials there and job agents here. The Ministry is also eyeing Singapore as a new job market".

The Minister said that the South Korean market has grown rapidly and our job quota will doubled from next year. We have launched a program to conduct Korean language classes for prospective employees.

Commenting on more foreign employment opportunities for skilled workers and professionals, the Minister said it is time to set up skilled, semi skilled and professional training institutes here. A new specific job training system has been set up because some jobs need specific training.

"I am getting more local and foreign institutes to provide training for specific jobs. We have also decided to launch company specific training because some companies prefer Sri Lankan workers. I am in touch with those companies to open training centres here to train locals for jobs in their companies.

There are also country specific training schemes as some countries prefer Sri Lankan workers to foreigners. We have also invited those countries to introduce training and skilled development facilities for Sri Lankan workers to work in those countries.

We are exploring several new job areas such as care givers, nursing, construction and the hotel sector as well," he said.