Sri Lankans looses many jobs due to country situation

Yesterday I met a friend who is working for one of the key BPO companies in Sri Lanka. According to him, Sri Lanka is loosing many of the jobs in BPO sector due to the political unsuitability here. Many of critical projects are taken out of Sri Lanka. These projects were again out source to countries such as India, Malaysia & China. Because investors are scared to keep these back offices in Sri Lanka. If there was a bomb blast and if anything happened to staff or if staff can't come to work for one day, that is a problem for them. Because if the staff here gets unable to work for one day, that has a direct impact on their share price with regard to some of the key processes. Some of the staff has made redundant. Some are not yet made redundant, but these professionals who handled most important tasks of the key companies in the world are idling today. They can easily find a job anywhere in the country with their skills, but the problem is they obtained very high salaries with these foreign clients. Because these clients who are operated world wide earned in dollars & pounds. They paid salaries in Rupees. So they did have a competitive advantage. For a Sri Lankan based company who cater for local market, it will be impractical to pay salaries even closer to these margins. Therefore this has a huge impact on our economy. Ultimately these officers will have no option but to leave the country for the same job in another country.

Countries such as India take the advantage out of this. They have already put up some large offices in many south Indian cities just to grab Sri Lankan market. Not only that. They have put up even training colleges to train their employees to receive these high end work. That is something which we never did. Our youngsters managed to do all these tasks without even having any idea what those companies are. They learned it hard way.

Not only BPOs, but even at other sectors we could see this. Just look at the hotel promotions these days. Hotels which cost about Rs 10,000 per night, have now introduced new packages. I saw one such hotel has offered one night, bread and breakfast for Rs3,000 only for Sri Lankan citizens or Sri Lankan VISA holders. They can't give full board package to this amount. But still they have introduced new packages at such comparatively lower rates, because they need to find some ways to survive. Half of the contract staff has sent home. In this sector even the permanent staff do not get attractive high digit salaries. But they had lavish life styles because they received commission from foreign tourists. At the end of the month most of the time, total of these commission exceeded their salary. But now it’s not the case.

These are only 2 examples which I know. In general we all are aware that the politics has an effect on everything and business is very sensitive to these issues. Some one could argue that there's a war going on and we have to tighten our belts. Now days what ever happens, the excuse is war. If you are a patriotic, you have to bear with it for the sake of the mother land. Is government responsible for this tragedy in economic sector of this country? Well economics or business is not my field and I'm not an expert of it. But as a citizen I believe YES. Government is responsible. Do they have any plan to develop the economy of this country? If they don't know what to do, at least they have to appoint some people who can run the game. Except for few I don't see any talented experts on the field. I don't see any plan to boost business or any infrastructure development to attract investment. Its reported that people like Lee Luan Yew and Mahatheir Mohammad also have killed people and abducted people in the early stages after they appointed. But they did develop their country. They didn't do those to take the revenge from anyone or hide witness. They made their countries as wonderful places to live. They made their citizens proud about their country. I think if you are a real patriotic that’s what you should do. Rather than destroying the country further more, if you can build it from scratch that’s great. War or what ever, as a responsible government they should develop the economy of the country. There is a strong private sector in this country and they have taken enough initiative to drive through this out break. But I feel there are things they cannot do. That's why a government is there.