The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has teamed up with Bdjobs.com Ltd. to create an online job portal for overseas jobseekers to provide latest job-related information and connect them directly with employers.
Both the organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this end recently, according to a press release issued by the IOM office in Dhaka on Wednesday.
The new portal is expected to be launched within six months, it said.
The job portal, which will be developed with support from the IOM Development Fund, will have some unique features, particularly designed for Bangladeshi migrant workers.
The portal will offer Bangla/English language preferences and will allow jobseekers to create profiles with information required by the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET).
Profiles will also be integrated with a search engine through which the government, foreign missions, employers and recruiting agencies will be able to identify suitable candidates, the press release said.
"Overseas employment opportunities, job requirements and the terms and conditions are the bare minimum that migrants should know to make conscious choices," said IOM Bangladesh Chief of Mission Giorgi Gigauri in the press release.
It is their basic right and it is very important that stakeholders go beyond business as usual and play a responsible role in protecting migrant workers, he said.
Credible information platforms need to become more accessible, not only to potential migrants, but also migrants living abroad and those willing to re-migrate, he added.
Bdjobs.com CEO AKM Fahim Mashroor said, "The changing market dynamics are driving us to focus more on technical jobs, which are filled by a large number of migrant workers."
"We believe this initiative will definitely help migrant workers to get more accurate and timely job information for safe and regular migration," he said.
In Bangladesh, nearly two million people join the working-age population every year, while only 200,000 jobs are created locally.
This phenomenon, coupled with pull factors - peer influence, expectations of higher income and the perceived social status attached to living abroad - often lead working-age people to migrate for jobs overseas.
But prospective migrants frequently find themselves misled by middlemen when it comes to signing to contracts and confronting working and living conditions different from what they were promised in some destination countries.
Some job seekers even become victims of human trafficking and end up facing extreme exploitation and abuse, the press release said.
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