Efforts on to keep manpower export intact

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Syful Islam The government is trying to continue the present pace of sending people abroad amid volatility in its major market in the Middle East, officials said Sunday. Besides, it is continuing to explore new markets with a view to employing the large number of jobless people and returnees from crises-stricken Libya, they added. "The present rate of sending Bangladeshis abroad is satisfactory. Currently we are concentrating on keeping the present rate of foreign employment intact," Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan told the FE. He said: "We were in tension over the political developments in the Middle Eastern countries apprehending that overseas employments might go down significantly. But in reality, that didn't happen." Statistics show that during the three months of 2011 the overseas employments of Bangladeshi workers saw a growth by 1,000 each month. In January 32,924 Bangladeshi labourers found jobs abroad followed by 33,403 in February and 34,325 up to March 24. Dr Khan said there is a good demand of Bangladeshi workers abroad but sending skilled workers is much better than sending unskilled ones. "Earning from professional and skilled manpower is much higher than that from the unskilled workers. So, we will now prefer sending trained people abroad," he said. "We are also trying to find out new overseas destinations," Dr Khan added. A total of 390,702 Bangladeshis found jobs abroad in 2010 which is down by 84,576 from 2009. The Middle Eastern countries are major destinations of Bangladeshi job seekers which accounted for over 82 per cent overseas employment of 6,698,022 during 1976-2009 period. Statistics show that less skilled people dominate the tally of Bangladesh's overseas employments by 50 per cent at 3,377,943 followed by 2,090,142 or 31 per cent by skilled manpower, 16 per cent or 1,081,853 by semi-skilled workers and 3.0 per cent or 181,336 by professionals.