*groundviews journalism For citizens 8 Aug, 2011
Anushka Wijesinha (who blogs here), a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies, sent us these incredible photos and video of the chaos in Colombo today when thousands of Korean job seekers appeared for Korean exam applications at the Police Park down Havelock Road. Mainstream media reports a figure of 10,000, which going by the video and photos appear to be mostly young men.
Anushka Wijesinha (who blogs here), a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies, sent us these incredible photos and video of the chaos in Colombo today when thousands of Korean job seekers appeared for Korean exam applications at the Police Park down Havelock Road. Mainstream media reports a figure of 10,000, which going by the video and photos appear to be mostly young men.
As Anushka notes, of the 4.5% unemployment rate overall in Sri Lanka, 18.1% of youth (age 15-24) are unemployed and within this around 10.7% of those qualified with A/Ls are unemployed. He further noted that,
- Many were queuing from 5pm yesterday, which means they had spent the night on the pavements.
- By the time the centre closed at 11.15am (as was informed by the officials there to those gathered 3,500 applicants had been registered. There was at least 1,000 more in the queue at that point, who were turned away.
- Many had gone to the Kalutara centre and had been unsuccessful, and had came to to the Police Park centre today
- IPS did a snap survey of the profile of the applicants seeking work in Korea and the results will be published along with an article soon, on the blog www.ipslk.blogspot.com. Sample of around 50 youth.
- Preliminary results: majority were from Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha, Matara, Galle and Hambantota districts (Emphasis ours)
- Majority of those interviewed in the snap survey had A/L as their highest qualification, with few even having degrees
- Yet, the majority stated they were seeking ‘any type of work’ or ‘manual labour’, while a minority were seeking specific occupations.
- The remaining crowd of youth were informed that they can try again at 28 other centres across the country
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