In search of new overseas job market

Bangladeshi migrant workers are still struggling to resume work or go back to conventional destination countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the workers have returned home since the outbreak of the Covid-19 and more remained jobless and stranded abroad. Those employing countries have imposed certain restrictions on recruitment of foreign workers and they are unlikely to create massive jobs soon.

So, Bangladesh needs to explore new job markets that we already should have captured after many years of experience in earning remittances. We are blessed with demographic resources and a number of European and East Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand have either shortage of manpower, zero or minus population growth or green field areas for making investment. We are still talking about exploring such markets whereas we should have taken preparations to meet requirements of skills, language and culture in those countries.

We've already wasted a lot of time and in the post-pandemic period, these markets could have been viable options for making up for the losses of jobs in conventional markets. For that, we need to act now, by providing training on language and culture apart from job-oriented skills that are necessary in those countries. In fact, service sector including hospital and services at home for the elderly people are a few of areas of opportunities

SB Newton

New Eskaton, Dhaka

[email protected]