Saudi team due tomorrow to discuss recruitment

A Saudi delegation is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the modalities of recruiting Bangladeshi workers, said officials.

The delegation, headed by a deputy minister of labour of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), will visit Bangladesh following the lifting of ban by the Middle Eastern country for resuming recruitment of workers from this month.

An official of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment ministry said, a 17-member Saudi delegation comprising representatives from the ministries concerned is due in city on February 8 to discuss manpower recruitment procedures.

Both the governments will discuss related issues including migration cost, visa trading etc.

The official said one of the major issues for discussion is minimisation of migration cost. The KSA is considering reducing the cost of migration.

Members of the delegation will visit technical training centres of the country to observe the training capacity.

Though unskilled Bangladeshi workers were taken by Saudi Arabia previously, now it will recruit only skilled workers, the official hinted.

Bangladesh has a database of around 2.2 million workers for sending to overseas job markets. Workers will be sent from that databank.

Earlier the kingdom recruited more than 0.1 million workers a year. But it fell to about 10,000 from 2008 following a restriction imposed by the Saudi government.

A total of 2.63 million Bangladeshis travelled to the KSA with jobs from 1976 to 2014, according to BMET.

Currently around 1.5 million Bangladeshis are working in the KSA, as per official information of the labour receiving country.

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