The World Bank's latest Bangladesh Development Update report has mostly grim predictions and warnings for the country struggling to be equal to the task of overcoming the multifarious crises and steadying the ship on course of its cherished destiny. A movement begun on government job quota had in it inherent the seed of a wider campaign against social discrimination at the centre of which lies economic disparities. But the interim government formed to oversee the development of a structural process for election of people's representatives committed to a system of governance free from bias, corruption and avarice is yet to pay enough attention to some of the more day-to-day pressing issues.
The WB has only focused on some of the burning issues that threaten to send it to a retrogressive metamorphosis. Escalation of poverty and job loss linked so intrinsically head the list of negative developments. As many as 1.2 million people here may slide into extreme poverty 'due to job losses and declining real wages' this year. In fact, real wages have already declined across all classes of people by an average of 2.6 per cent. This may not have affected the affluent and higher middle classes of people but the low-income groups have been hit hard.
Particularly alarming is the fact that youths completing tertiary education have a share of 27.8 per cent among all the unemployed population in the country. This is an indication of two undesirable developments in the education system and also in the domestic manufacturing sector. If the graduates and post-graduates churned out from educational institutions have incompatible academic qualifications and skills for domestic jobs in the industrial sector, the loss is manifold. Apart from the mismatch in demand and supply which refers to purposeless and even wasteful investment in education, their prospect for employment abroad is slimmer and if they somehow manage any, it is low-paid and well below their academic qualification. Even at home, their employment more often than not means inappropriate or wasteful investment of money, energy and time ---all of which count so much in modern times.
The trend is alarming because unemployment rate among the educated at the tertiary level has tripled, as the WB reckons, over the past seven years. This is indeed a vicious cycle because it also indicates stagnation of job creation or even manufacturing reversals. Well, automation on a wide scale can lead to joblessness but reports published from time to time hold that foreigners are employed to serve industries when local candidates lack the required qualifications and skills. Again, these are specialised jobs and foreigners are hired on high salaries while the local employees are mostly blue-collar workers. The country thus loses on several counts simultaneously.
The government offers employment for only five per cent of the total workforce. It is the private sector involved with production of consumer goods, commodities and light engineering machines and components that could not only meet the local demands but also export products abroad. The two other sectors ---pharmaceutical and leather industries ---with immense prospect for earning foreign exchange for the country could not realise their potential because of policy failures and a lack of the required initiative on the part of the past governments. If the two industries flourished to their full potential, they could contribute to foreign exchange earning equal to or even more than that of the readymade garment (RMG).
In a country where small and medium enterprises (SMEs) also had immense potential with diversification of the export basket, the focus has remained overwhelmingly on the RMG which of late has been facing numerous challenges both at the level of management-labour relations and at the export destinations. Responsible for this is global economic crunch as well as the repercussion of the soured labour relations at home. Ingenuity as demonstrated by self-taught mechanics in developing contraptions of different sizes and shapes is a clear evidence of how they could be used to advance the cause of industrial development suitable for this small but highly populous country.
Yet another sector that has made a mark on the international stage and largely on its own is the information and communication technology (ICT). Freelancing has advanced appreciably without the required infrastructure. Had non-stop electricity supply, high-speed internet connection and other required facilities been ensured, the country's computer programmers, software engineers would have expanded their work areas for absorption of a significant number of educated but unemployed young people.
All such productive areas had to be brought under a comprehensive plan but faulty policies never allowed development of those. This is why foreign investments were largely shy of making its present felt. Labour is still cheaper in this country but making good use of it is sorely lacking. If the potentially high performing sectors could be developed with a matching education system in collaboration with industries and service sectors, unemployment, particularly for educated youths, was likely to be a thing of the past. The interim government perhaps will not get enough time for making all this happen but it can formulate a draft policy for the next government to pursue.
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