MP Abeysinghe flies too low on foreign departures

Fact Check

MP Abeysinghe makes a larger claim regarding the increasing number of Sri Lankans going abroad due to challenging living conditions in the country.  In support of the larger claim, he states that 500 individuals go abroad daily, and 180,000 – 200,000 individuals go abroad per month. In the context of his statement FactCheck.lk interprets the MP’s reference to people ‘going abroad’ as an indication of Sri Lankans migrating for employment (for better prospects).

To evaluate the claims, FactCheck.lk consulted the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Economic Data Library and the CBSL Quarterly Bulletin Reports on Worker Remittances and Labour Migration.

The most up-to-date publicly available data on foreign employment departures is for the nine-month period from January to September 2023. It shows an average of 824 individuals leaving daily for work abroad. This number is significantly higher than the figure cited by the MP.

The MP’s estimate of 500 a day translates to 180,000 a year, and not a month as he has stated. FactCheck.lk therefore assumes that the MP has misspoken and meant to refer to annual departures instead of monthlydepartures when he cited that number. The annualised equivalent of the nine-month average would be 300,767, which is much higher than the 180,000 – 200,000 figures the MP has cited.

In sum, the MP’s overall claim is that there is a significant increase in foreign employment departures. However, the figures provided by the MP to support his claim (500 daily departures) are close to the lowest rates of departure in non-COVID years—such as in 2019 when daily departures were averaging 556 (see Exhibit 1). In fact, the current rate of daily departures is among the highest historically (seen only in 2014 and 2022). The actual data does support his larger claim that foreign employment departures are unusually high, although the incorrect numbers cited by the MP do not.

Therefore, paying attention to the larger claim, we classify the MP’s statement as PARTLY TRUE.

 

Exhibit 1: Foreign Departures for Employment (2010 – 2022)

Source: https://www.cbsl.lk/eresearch/

 

Exhibit 2: Quarterly Foreign Departures for Employment (January, June, and September)

Source: Quarterly Bulletin of Workers’ Remittances and Labour Migration | Central Bank of Sri Lanka (cbsl.gov.lk)