Sri Lanka workers leaving for foreign jobs reduce in 2025 first half

 

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka workers leaving for jobs in foreign countries like the Middle East have eased from February 2025, central bank data show, amid a recovery in economic activities and wages.

In January 2025, 25,873 persons officially left for foreign jobs, up from 25,149 in 2024.

But in February 2025 departures fell to 22,271 from 25,737.

In March 2025 departures were 21,552, down from 24,158.

In April 2025, departures were 22,011 against 22,220 last year.

In May 2025 departures picked up to 27,142 against 28,201 last year.

Total departures were down 5 percent to 143,037 by June 2025.

Sri Lanka saw a spike in departures for foreign work after aggressive macro-economic policy was deployed to close an ‘output gap’ under from 2020, triggering steep collapse of the currency and external default.

The collapse came on top of earlier currency crises from money printing for discretionary (flexible) inflation targeting without a floating rate.

Remittances from families members have typically allowed Sri Lanka to recover quickly from stabilization crises that accompany currency crises.

Most of remmittances were to currency board like countries without ‘monetary policy’ or to others with low inflation targets of around 2 percent.

Sri Lanka was a outward remitting country with a currency board arrangement (no policy rate) when the central bank was created in 1950.

Sri Lanka’s central bank has provided stability to the country in 2024, by missing its 5 percent inflation target.

There are calls for the parliament to restrain the central bank with a 2 percent inflation ceiling and not floor rate, to stop inflation, currency depreciation and a second sovereign default.

Though the central bank has halted inflationary open market operations in 2025 it is still free to depreciate the currency, push up food and energy prices pressure family finances and state enterprise finance and also push up capital and current spending to worsen budget deficits.

The rupee has depreciated amid record current account surpluses as dollar were bought to create excess liquidity but they were not redeemed for private transactions, when the liquidity turned into credit and imports. (Colombo/Oct25/2025)

Source - https://economynext.com/