A Study on Labour Migration, Remittances and Economic Growth in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Labour migration and remittance inflows play a significant role in the Sri Lankan economy. 8.3% of average remittance receipts as a percentage of GDP between 2010-2018 in Sri Lanka (ILO, 2020) indicates remittance receipts were the highest source of foreign exchange income to Sri Lanka. According to the CBSL, workers’ remittance has covered 80 percent of the trade deficit in the past two decades and remittance receipts have passed the trade deficit in 2020. Ramanayake and Wijetunga (2018) have studied Sri Lanka’s labour migration trends, remittances and economic growth during the period of 1970 to 2015. This research fills the gap in the recent data period between 2010-2021 on labour migration, remittances and economic growth. Further, findings of this study reveal that the recent trends of labour migration according to the gender, agency used for migration, age, manpower and country before the pandemic spread and post pandemic period. Moreover, changes in remittances receipts in the past decade and flow with pandemic has been presented. This study is limited to the available data and departures of labour migration are spread over a wide area. Therefore, this study focuses only on departures for foreign employment by gender, age, manpower and country. This research will give new knowledge to those who are interested in it, and this will be new literature to researchers for their further studies. In addition, this will help policy makers for adding new knowledge to existing previous literature.