The small nation of Sri Lanka is experiencing exponential growth in its economy; however, despite the substantial and consistent growth, the growth in the job market has been highly centered on several key job industries — demanding specific skill sets from those who wish to exploit the advantages offered by this economic surge. The experts have weighed in with the warning that only those who possess specific and relevant skills will be able to benefit from this boom.
According to staffing consultants, Kelly Services, those who are seeking jobs in Sri Lanka will need to possess skills in the functions and areas of mobile technology, sales and marketing, relationship management in banking, analytics and information technology and research and development. These particular industries are expected to grow 10 to 15 percent in. There is particular surges expected in IT, business intelligence and data, as well as ecommerce and teaching.
Business Intelligence & Data
Business intelligence and data analytics the skill set that is currently in highest demand. Individuals with a reasonable amount of experience can expect to be paid in the same range as highly respected doctors and lawyers, ranking at the top of the list in skills demand. This specific category includes skills such as business intelligence, data warehousing and software framework design.
Software Development and IT
Another set of skills that are in high demand is centered on experienced IT professionals, ecommerce and software design. This is due to the fact that ecommerce companies have landed some huge investments to spark business growth. There is an expected growth rate of 18 to 20 percent in 2015. This trend is not expected to slow down any time soon, with the rise of technology consumption, especially in the area of mobile technology.
The traditional IT sector should experience a significant surge in hiring as the demand continues to grow in correspondence with the economic boom. This hiring surge will present opportunities to a number of different skill types, including IT infrastructure managers, mobile developers for Android, IOS and Windows. In addition to traditional IT jobs, those with experience in program writing languages, such as Ruby, Python, HTML, CSS an Rails will also have an opportunity to participate in the growth.
Teaching & Education
The government of Sri Lanka is placing a high premium on education, making those with teaching skills in a number of disciplines a highly recruited commodity. Especially when it comes to jobs in Colombo, one of two capital cities in Sri Lanka, teaching vacancies are at a premium; however, teaching jobs are not limited to Colombo.
There is a great demand for teaching jobs in several areas in Sri Lanka, subsequently opening the door for teachers who lack experience. Even though there is a need for experienced educators, the job vacancies for teachers is so high in and around Colombo that they are willing to forgo the requirement for experience in order to fill the positions.
Customer Service and People Management
The country is expected to experience an increase in the demand for human resource managers and customer service representatives. This position has a lot of room for growth due to the fact that it expands across multiple industries.
Sales and Marketing
Those with marketing and sales experience will also find a warm welcome, especially in the area of financial services and consumer goods. As general positive sentiment is consistently converted to tangible growth, sales skills will assume a highly relevant role in the growth process, subsequently leading to more office jobs in that industry. There should be an expansive range of job titles associated with these particular skill sets, such as sales executive, sales representative, sale advisor or sales person and more.
With the hiring surge that is expected, those who have combined proficiencies in certain areas, such as business partnering, managing people and facing clients should be in extremely high demand in 2015. According to a report by Teamlease, a significant number of opportunities may arise in the education industry, especially for those with skills in admissions, program coordination and teaching. There will also be a substantial need for research and development professionals in chemicals, health care and the automotive and manufacturing sectors.
It is worth noting that in 2014, experts cautioned that a great deal of the optimistic projections for the job market were based on sentiment, and that it could take as long as three quarters to begin to experience tangible and measurable changes in the economy; however, in 2015, the economic growth is a result of the momentum that was initiated toward the end of 2014.
