The country's overseas employment continued to decline in the recent months due to lower demand for workers in the Middle East (ME) countries, according to official statistics.
The sector insiders and experts said it would be hardly possible to achieve the target set by the government for the current calendar year as the outflow of workers was much lower in the recent months.
A total of 614,585 Bangladeshis found jobs abroad during the period from January to October this year as compared to 834,773 registered in the corresponding period of 2017, Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) figures showed.
The recruitment by the ME countries, including Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Oman and Qatar, has dropped significantly in the first 10 months of the ongoing year due to sluggish development works there.
Besides, some Arab countries have taken a move to create job opportunities for their own people, according to officials and workers. So the job prospect has been squeezed there, they said, adding that many of the workers are forced to come back home after losing their jobs.
According to the BMET figures, the KSA, the largest job market for Bangladeshi workers, hired 206,768 people in the first 10 months in 2018. The country had recruited 462,713 workers in the corresponding period of 2017.
During the period under review, Other ME countries such as Qatar hired 63,344 workers from Bangladesh while Oman 60,199 and Kuwait 26,373. But these three countries took 77,145, 74,943 and 42,031workers respectively in the corresponding period in 2017.
Manpower recruiters and officials at the expatriates' welfare ministry said the declining trend would also continue in the remaining months of this year.
Besides, Malaysia has also suspended manpower recruitment through exiting system under 'G2G Plus' deal due to an alleged unethical practice. Reportedly, the Southeast Asian country is now working on a new system and recruitment by the country would remain suspended until introduction of the process.
So the goal, fixed by the government to send 1.2 million workers in 2018, is likely to remain unachieved, sector insiders said.
Pervez Siddiqui, migration analyst and executive director of Films 4 Peace Foundation, said that the ministry concerned fixed the goal without conducting a proper market study. "Naturally, it is not possible to achieve the target."
The country could send more than 1.0 million workers in the previous year as Saudi Arabia alone hired half a million of them.
Mr. Siddiqui also thought that Bangladesh sent more workers to Saudi Arabia than the country's demand. For this reason, he added, many workers were losing jobs and returning home empty handed.
He stressed the need for increasing quality migration rather than quantity.
The BMET figures show that more than 11 million Bangladeshis went abroad with employment since 1976.
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