Badrul Ahsan
Talented Bangladeshi youths are eventually drawing the attention of the entrepreneurs in developed countries in outsourcing their IT-enabled products through freelancing in the country, mainly prompted by the job's competitive charge and better quality, industry insiders said.
Companies, especially those in the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore, have increasingly been assigning local IT (information technology) experts to developing both their online and offline-based software for the last couple of years, they added.
Considering the potential, some leading global online employment platforms, including Elance and oDesk, have come forward to work with Bangladeshi experts.
According to industry people, both employment and income from the sector have achieved a robust growth of about 150 per cent on year-on-year basis over the last couple of years.
More than forty thousand local youths (IT personnel) have so far been employed in the sector and income from the sector has reached a volume of around US$ 40 million until April in the current fiscal year (FY). The number of young IT experts was less than thirty thousand, and the income stood at $20 million during the corresponding period in the last FY, they informed.
They said if the government focused proper attention on the sector, it might overtake the country's main export earning sector of ready-made garment (RMG) products when it came to assignments and earnings.
"IT freelancing has taken off in a big way in Bangladesh, with around 100 to 150 per cent growth for the last couple of years," AKM Fahim Masroor, former president of Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services (BASIS) told the FE Thursday.
"More than 40,000 local talented youths (freelancers) are now working from their homes in Bangladesh for different global companies, and the number is on the rise," he added.
"But how much money they are earning from abroad each year is difficult to measure as their income is not included in the software export data," said Mr Masroor, as he hinted at a figure of around $40 million.
Of the earnings through freelancing, around 45 per cent came from IT and programming, 25 per cent from design and multimedia, 13 per cent from sales and marketing, 10 per cent from administrative support, 5 per cent from writing and translation, and 2 per cent from miscellaneous jobs.
Due to some anomalies, freelancers receive their money through Western Union, VISA card, Master card and other channels, which do not enter the government's export earning software.
The BASIS president, however, urged the government to normalise the procedure of receiving the money from abroad.
According to Mr Masroor, BASIS has planned to regularly award successful freelancers of the country as part of recognition to their contribution to the country's economy.
Monowar Shipon, an emerging outsourcing expert, who has been working in this field for the last five years, said Bangladesh was competing with India, Pakistan and some eastern European countries in the freelance job, which definitely spoke of the high calibre of Bangladeshi IT professionals.
"If the government takes sufficient measures to train up fresh graduates of the country, then the earnings from the sector would increase manifold shortly," he added.
"Initial earning made by a person in the job is not that much attractive, but after gaining experience in the field one can earn more than any seasoned professional in Bangladesh," Mr Shipon said. He is now providing training to fresh graduates on web searching and outsourcing activities.
Freelancers earn $15 to $20 per hour on an average for technical work, and $5 to $10 for administrative or non-technical work. A new comer in the sector earns around $2 to $5 depending on the type of jobs.
Ahmed Baktiar, another freelancer, said many of his fellow colleagues were hired by the foreign companies with lucrative salaries, and the trend was increasing gradually.
"It is good news for us that our local talented youths are getting direct appointment by foreign companies, but at the same time it is also a threat to the industry that we cannot retain our experts in the country, because the others are deprived of training that could be availed from them," he added.
However, to give further boost to the sector, BASIS has been providing different kinds of training, and the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministry has, in the meantime, completed a Tk 70 million project for training up people in the same field.
Besides, World Bank has also come forward to impart similar training to the Bangladeshi youths.
