This letter is in reference to an article titled 'Overseas employment shrinks due to poor ME demand' that was published in the Financial Express on November 13, 2018.
The informative piece reported that Bangladesh's overseas employment has declined in recent months due to lower demand for workers in Middle Eastern (ME) countries. It has fallen at such a rate that sector insiders are dreading that it would be hard to achieve the overseas employment target set by government this year.
According to Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), around 614,585 Bangladeshis found jobs abroad between January and October of this year. This number was 834,773 during the corresponding period of 2017.
The article pointed out that this drop in recruitment by nearly 200,000 workers was caused by less recruitment by countries like Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Oman and Qatar. The development works in those countries have been sluggish lately. Some ME countries have also decided to create job opportunities for their own people, forcing many migrant workers there to return to their countries.
According to the BMET figures, the KSA is the largest job market for Bangladeshi workers. It hired 206,768 people in the first 10 months of 2018, compared to 462,713 workers recruited during the same period of 2017. Similar drops in recruitment were also found in the cases of Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.
Sector insiders also said in the article that the declining trend is likely to continue throughout this year.
Malaysia has also suspended manpower recruitment through existing system under G2G Plus from Bangladesh. As a result, the government target of sending 1.20 million workers in 2018 is likely to remain unachieved.
It's time that the government explored other destinstions where Bangladeshi workers can be sent. Since 1976, 11 million Bangladeshis migrated to certain countries in the ME, Southeast Asia and Europe for employment. Apprehending such changes in recruitment, the government should have looked for other destinations.
Another article published in the FE last week highlighted that China can be a good destination for migrant workers from Bangladesh. A number of issues that the Chinese government is facing have driven them to recruit skilled and unskilled migrants from Philippines. This can be a golden opportunity for Bangladesh to initiate talks with the Chinese government about the kind of workers they are seeking.
Bangladesh can also look at non-traditional destinations like Russia. As Bangladesh has strong ties with these two countries, the government can try to broaden the scope for Bangladeshi migrants there.
Akibul Javed,
Indira Road, Dhaka
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