Calcey pegged salaries to dollars to survive Sri Lanka's currency crash

During Sri Lanka's 2022 economic crisis, the rupee fell almost 45% against the U.S. dollar between February and May. Applicants for specialized tech roles began asking local employers for dollars, euros or pounds, making retention and hiring a survival issue.

Calcey Technologies became one of the first companies to adjust salaries to U.S. dollars. Founder and CEO Mangala Karunaratne said he made a strategic business decision to save the company, rather than accept that employees paid in rupees would absorb the devaluation.

He acknowledged the move could hurt local startups' ability to retain people, but said Calcey saved some of its most valuable assets—its people. By November 2023, the pattern had spread: Pegged Place to Work counted 192 Sri Lankan tech companies paying salaries fully or partially adjusted to foreign currencies.

Kept some of its most valuable people and protected the business, even though hard-currency pay intensified local talent competition.

The currency collapse directly eroded the purchasing power of rupee salaries.

Specialized applicants were already demanding dollars, euros or pounds from local employers.

A salary peg made retention possible when nominal raises could not keep pace with devaluation.

The decision protected the company but also raised the competitive bar for other local startups.

When inflation makes local pay unreliable, a hard-currency peg can retain critical people before it becomes a perk—but it shifts cost pressure to competing employers.

Dollar-pegged pay became one of several workarounds used by Sri Lankan tech companies: others added travel allowances or stock options, upskilled adjacent talent, or hired remotely in other countries. The report attributes Calcey's retention result to Karunaratne's account and does not provide a later revenue or headcount measure.