Over 1m may get jobs abroad this year

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Mushir Ahmed
More than a million people are expected to get overseas jobs this year amid a huge increase in the demand for Bangladeshi workers all over the world, officials said Tuesday.
The hope came after a record 91,999 people got overseas jobs in January, breaking an earlier record created in July last year, Salim Reza, a director of Bureau of Manpower and Employment Training (BMET) said.
"It is the highest monthly foreign jobs for Bangladeshis since the country started sending workers abroad in the mid-1970s," Reza said.
"It shows that there is huge demand for Bangladeshi workers all over the world. We hope this year at least one million people will get jobs abroad," he said.
A record 832,000 people got jobs in at least 100 countries last year but procedural delay and acute shortages of international flights meant that only around 600,000 were able to join their work during the year.
The country received a record $6.56 billion in remittance thanks to the huge outflow of workers. Currently over five million Bangladeshis live and work abroad.
Officials said a huge construction boom in the Gulf countries and expansion of manufacturing sector in Malaysia led to the record demand in Bangladeshi workers.
"There is no way these countries can continue their construction activities without Bangladeshi workers. Our workers are cheap and also hard working," said a senior government official.
Projects worth over $1.0 trillion is now underway in the Gulf countries where a latest oil boom has prompted the leaders and businessmen to invest heavily in creating new cities, townships, mammoth factories and hotels.
Early this month, the country also sent its first batch of over 100 workers to Rumania, making it the first east European destination for Bangladeshi workers.
The workers have been employed in garment and allied factories, said Belal Hossain, a manager of Al Abbas International, which found the jobs for the Bangladeshi workers.
More than a thousand would also find jobs in the country by the end of this year, mostly in the construction sectors, he added.
"Soon hundreds of our workers will be heading to Poland, Canada and some developed countries as these nations are now opening up their job markets to the overseas workers," said Reza.
Poland and other east European nations are facing a huge shortfall of workers following an exodus of their young men to western Europe since the country's integration with the European Union (EU) earlier this decade.