A persistent declining trend in the overseas jobs is taking a heavy toll on the country's remittance earnings, sector insiders and economists said.
Keeping this in view, they feared that the overall inward remittances could be significantly lower this fiscal year (FY) than that of the last FY.
Since the country's remittance income witnessed a 5.77 per cent negative growth in the first three quarters of this FY over the corresponding period of the last FY, it is quite difficult to reach the last fiscal's earning during the remaining quarter.
According to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data, Bangladeshi migrants remitted a total of US$ 10.48 billion during the July-March period of the FY 2013-14. The same was $11.12 billion during the corresponding period of FY 2012-13.
Speaking on the issue Executive Director of Policy Research Institute (PRI) Ahsan H Mansur said this FY Bangladesh may face a remittance shortfall ranging
between nearly $ 800 million and $ 1.0 billion compared to last fiscal's earnings of $ 14.46 billion.
He said the lower outflow of migrant workers is mainly responsible for such a declining trend in remittance inflow. Besides, many workers returned home from various labour destinations, which also affected the inward remittances, he mentioned.
The manpower export has been witnessing a slow trend since August 2012 following a suspension of visa issuance by the UAE to the Bangladeshi workers.
Only 96,068 Bangladeshis entered the international markets with jobs during the last three months of the calendar year 2014. Of them, 34,200 went in January, 28,510 in February and 33,358 in March, according to Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) data.
It is worth mentioning that some 409,253 Bangladeshis got overseas jobs in 2013 while the number was 607,798 in 2012 and 568,062 in 2011.
The private recruiters blamed the government for its poor or ineffective initiatives to increase manpower export under the present circumstances.
Bangladesh, they said, could not properly take advantage of the job opportunities in Malaysia, Qatar and Bahrain markets. It was also unable to open the 'closed' markets such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, the sector insiders observed.
Dr Mansur said the government should take effective measures to resume the Saudi Arabian and the UAE markets. At the same time it should come out from the government to government migration process in sending workers to Malaysia.
He said if the present migration trend continues for long, the country's remittances will be affected severely and the rate of unemployment will increase remarkably.
Meanwhile, secretary of the ministry of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment Khandaker Shawkat Hossain said they are taking various efforts to reverse the existing trend of overseas jobs.
He said to increase the labour migration they have already held a meeting with the Bangladeshi ambassadors in various potential job markets in the Middle East and Libya.
They will have another such meeting this month (April), he added.
"We are also trying to explore markets in Europe, Russia and Belarus as there is a demand for foreign workers in those countries," he said.
The government has also increased labour wings from 16 to 28 in the worker receiving countries, said Mr Hossain.
About 8.6 million Bangladeshis are now working in 159 countries. Of them, only some 20 countries have absorbed the bulk of the overseas Bangladeshi workers.
