54000 JOB LOSS IN SRILANKA: ECONOMIC CRISIS STARTED!!!

World economic crisis hits: 54,000 lose jobs

53 EXPORT COMPANIES SHUT DOWN
By Padmini Matarage

The global economic crisis has hit Sri Lanka hard and over 53 export oriented companies have closed down so far while over 54,000 employees have been laid off.
Though various ‘experts’ in authority earlier claimed that Sri Lanka was immune from the global economic meltdown, the Inter Company Employees’ Union (ICEU) charges that around 53 companies in the garment, building, warm clothes, cement, gem exporting and finance industries have shut down and more than 54,000 workers have lost their jobs. The president of the trade union, Wasantha Samarasinghe warned that there was a danger of more employees losing their jobs before the end of April and a situation may arise ‘where there would be labour demonstrations in every street from May.’ Samarasinghe said that the ministers of labour and industry have still not got involved in addressing the serious challenges posed by job losses.
He also said that the Labour Department is planning to file court cases against 30 companies that have wound up.
Many factories in the Katunayake, Biyagama, and Koggala free trade zones are now finding it difficult to so much as pay the monthly salaries of employees. Their overtime, bonuses, increments and transportation facilities have also been curtailed.
Some companies have sent employees home on leave, ranging from 1 week to 2 month periods. Samarasinghe said that officials in some companies are also looking at extending the leave granted to employees.
Samarasinghe said that some of the factories which have shut down are Camp Master in Gampaha, Manik International in Ratnapura, Tharangani Garments in Colombo, This Style in Anuradhapura, Krist Lanka in Kurunegala and Star Lanka in Galle. He said that 3000 employees have lost their jobs as a result of the closure of Synotex, a garment factory in the Gampaha district. 2000 workers have lost their jobs as a result of closure of Krist Lanka in Kurunegala. The Bogala graphite mine, the only functioning graphite mine in Sri Lanka, has already retrenched 200 of its 408 workforce.
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