Women's participation in workforce increasing - Report
The latest Everjobs career report reveals that the younger generation
of women in Sri Lanka's workforce are increasingly pursuing job roles
that in previous generations were dominated by men.
According to the report, more female applicants actively seek out job
roles in the IT, telecommunication, finance, energy, utilities and
healthcare industries.
According to statistics of the Department of Census and Statistics,
the estimated economically active population of Sri Lanka was about 8.9
million in the first quarter 2015, of which 63.3 percent were men and
36.7 percent women.
Within the economically inactive population, which also comprises
everyone involved in household duties, the disequilibrium is even
starker with 25.9 percent being men and 74.1 percent women.
Women's labour force participation rates around the world, shows that
there is a large reservoir of untapped female manpower that could be
used to develop the country, while empowering women and benefitting
society.
The report assembled by monitoring the traffic on Everjobs.lk over
the past five months suggests that women's participation in the
workforce in Sri Lanka is rapidly increasing, especially in
traditionally male-dominated industries.
"As the fastest growing job portal in Sri Lanka, we provide strong
data-based insights on the changes and developments in Sri Lanka's
labour market.
I am quite optimistic that the data from the latest career report
suggests that soon we might see policy level changes to increase female
applicants' access to demanding job roles and women-friendly
businesses," said Managing Director, Everjobs Sri Lanka, Sascha Woelk.
"It would also help substantially, if the major stakeholders involved
in the recruitment process, such as employers, recruitment agencies, and
government were to jointly identify strategic priorities for further
women's labour market integration," he said.
"Yet, at the frontline, it will always be employers, who need to make
a deliberate effort to give women a fair chance to have the career that
they aspire to. Looking at how closely gender parity is tied to GDP
growth around the world, this effort will surely be of great value to
Sri Lanka," he added.
Everjobs is a job portal operating in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Uganda. Launched in March
2015, Everjobs aims to become the leading job portal in fast-growing
economies, finding the right match between employers and candidates. The
company is backed by the Asia Pacific Internet Group (APACIG).
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