DEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES ENCOUNTER IN EMPLOYER ATTRACTIVENESS

The apparel industry is one of the largest export earning industries in Sri Lanka and provides ample job opportunities for society. Despite that industry is facing a large labour deficiency which can lead to a shift in the industry in near future. It stresses that there is a less attraction of potential employees towards the industry. Employer attractiveness is the envisioned benefits that a potential employee sees in working for a specific organization consist with five dimensions, namely interest value, social value, economic value, application value and development value. The dissimilarity of potential employees can be caused to prevailed differences in employer attractiveness. Therefore this study aims to investigate what demographic differences are exist in the employer attractiveness in terms of gender (Male & Female), age (Young & Middle-aged) and previous experiences in employment (Experienced & In-experienced) of potential employees in the apparel industry. Findings revealed that the perceived level of the employer attractiveness varies according to the gender, age and previous experiences in employment. The highest attracting dimension of males was economic value while the least was application value. Females were more attracted to social value and less attractive to development and interest value. Both young and middle-age people tend to attract more towards the economic value while the young category is least attracted to development value and middle age category is to application value. Experienced employees are highly attracted to the economic value of the employer while least attractive to the application value. Inexperienced people tend to attract more towards social value and least to development value.