The Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion

 Overseas employment is the largest

and Welfare, as a human resource ministry, was re-created as a standalone institution, on 22nd November 2010. With this, it was also assigned a new responsibility, that of attending to the concerns of the Diaspora. A key responsibility of the Ministry is to satisfy foreign demand for the employment of Sri Lanka personnel. This is its supply function. World remittance income from foreign employment is US $ 400 Billion. Sri Lanka’s share is 1%, having received about US $ 4.1 Billion in 2010. Remittance income is by far the highest foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka, providing 33% of her foreign exchange. Remittance income is 8% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, gained from Sri Lanka’s work force abroad. This work force is about 17% of Sri Lanka’s total labour force. The foci of the ministry are many fold. One is to increase its percentage of total world remittance income. Another is to rebrand the labour force, which is now mainly unskilled to becoming semi-skilled and skilled..

source of foreign exchange in the Sri Lankan economy. Since 1970’s when formal employment migration commenced, foreign employment has generated substantial inflows of remittance at the same time relieving pressure on unemployment of youth by providing employment abroad. During 2010 total remittance received amounted to US $. 4.1 Billion (Rs.465.3 Billion) The present policy for the development of this sector is to lay greater emphasis to provide more employment abroad to skilled and professional categories which will have a higher earning capacity and less employment related problems. Another policy initiative is to seek new employment sources. We continuously expand our services and facilities to exploit more employment opportunities ,while ensuring a labour migration process that adheres to principles of good governance and rights for all men and women to..