Sri Lanka doubles ICT workforce in four years

June 24, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's information and communications technology workforce has doubled in the past four years as the island ramps up training and investment to make the sector a key export industry. The industry aims to increase the ICT sector export earnings to a billion dollars by 2016, he said. A new survey said the number of ICT sector jobs increased by 100 percent to over 62,000 this year from 30,120 in 2006. Over 50,000 people are estimated to have been employed in the IT sector in 2010. The national ITC workforce survey by the state-run Information and Communication Technology Agency covered 80 state institutions, 325 private sector firms, 30 BPO (business processing outsourcing) firms, and 75 IT training institutes. It also showed that the number of female workers in the BPO sector was increasing and now accounted for 43 percent of the total BPO workforce Reshan Dewapura, chief executive of ICTA, there had been 4,473 ICT graduates in 2010 of whom 3,970 were employed. The ICT sector earns 375 million dollars a year and is now the island's fifth highest foreign exchange earner, he told a news conference.