Unemployment by province
Provincial unemployment rates by sex, including four source sampling-caution flags.
- Records
- 120
- Vintage
- 2025 survey; annual report dated 15 September 2026; 2024 Census weights · 2026 edition; observation years vary by table
- Last checked
- 16 October 2026
- Published by
- GovernmentDepartment of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka
What this dataset contains
Annual DCS Labour Force Survey unemployment rates for 2022–2025, compiled in the Pocket Book. The data covers nine provinces and the national figure, with male, female and both-sex rates for the household population aged 15 and over. Four blue-shaded source cells are identified with a sampling-caution flag. The original 2025 annual report supplies the weighting-method context.
How it is used here
Compare both-sex provincial unemployment rates in 2025 or follow their annual changes. When selecting sex-specific figures, include the sampling-caution field.
What it cannot tell you
Unemployment is a percentage of the labour force within the reported sex and geography, not a share of the whole working-age population. Provincial rates cannot be averaged to obtain the national rate. The source flags North Central female unemployment in 2024, North Central male unemployment in 2025, Sabaragamuwa male unemployment in 2025 and Eastern male unemployment in 2024 because of high coefficients of variation. No confidence intervals are supplied in this summary. The 2025 annual report says 2025 estimates were reweighted using the 2024 Census; the Pocket Book does not document a comparable reweighting for earlier years.