Bangladesh losing job market in Malaysia to competitors

Arafat Ara | Published: June 28, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Bangladesh is gradually losing its job market in Malaysia to some other countries of Asia in the absence of proper initiatives from the government to secure the potential destination for overseas employment, sector-insiders and experts said.
They said presently Malaysia's demand for foreign workers is estimated at around one million and Nepal, Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Indonesia are raising there share in the market.
If the situation continues, the market will be fully occupied by those countries shortly, people close to manpower-recruitment process said.
According to them the Bangladesh government is giving its focus on sending workers to Malaysia in plantation sector, which is risky and non-viable.
Other countries, on the contrary, are giving priority to areas other than plantation sector, like construction, service, agriculture and manufacturing. And their citizens are benefiting more than the Bangladeshi workers.
After the signing of deal with Kuala Lumpur (KL), the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment hoped that it could send nearly 0.5 million workers within five years.
So far, Bangladesh has sent about 4,000 workers to Malaysia after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in November 2012. A manpower agent said still there are an opportunity to send nearly 0.5 million workers to the newly industrialized country if government allows private sector.
If the government involves the private sector in the sending process, a significant number of people can get job in construction, service, agriculture and manufacturing sectors in the ASEAN country.
He, however, said they are now also agreed to cut migration cost for sending workers abroad.
The manpower exporter mentioned that Malaysian employers are very much fond of Bangladeshi workers in view of their hardworking nature and good manners.
He thinks the Southeast Asian country is forced to receive manpower from countries other than Bangladesh as Dhaka failed to explore the demand from the employers' side.
Tasneem Siddiqui, the founding chair of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), a Dhaka University-based research organization, earlier told the FE although the groundwork was good after the signing of the MoU and registration process for Malaysia-bound workers, Bangladesh has no prior preparation to get in such a big market.
"The government does not know business norms, how to create demand from the employers' side. So private recruiters should be included in the process to get a fruitful result," she opined.
Ms Siddiqui also said the government-to-government (G-to-G) process is not a solution to stop fraudulence. The government should introduce a strong monitoring system to avert such wrongdoing.
She also noticed a lack of coordination between the ministries concerned in Malaysia and Bangladesh on recruitment issues.
Besides, government initiative to reduce migration cost cannot see any tangible success following absence of requisite regular migration. They are going to Malaysia through different ways at Tk 300,000 to Tk400, 000 each.
Because of little option for securing job by legal channel, fortune-seekers are going to Malaysia by sea route on a regular basis. Many of them are being arrested and many others facing ferry capsize in the sea.
Five Bangladeshis were killed and 40 injured in attacks by a section of traffickers on June 11 while going to Malaysia by trawler. Nearly 300 jobseekers were on the trawler.
Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry secretary Khondaker Showkat Hossain said the outflow of workers will increase to Malaysia shortly.
Two Bangladeshi delegations will go to KL on July 7 and 8 to speed up the migration over there, he said.
Besides, Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) leaders also have agreed with the government to send workers to Malaysia at a lower cost. And they are also recruiting manpower from government database.
So it is also a good sign in increasing manpower export within a short period of time, he added.
In 2009, Malaysia suspended manpower import from Bangladesh following illegal migration facilitated by a section of dishonest recruiting agencies. But, after prolonged negotiations, Malaysia resumed recruiting workers from Bangladesh.