The ongoing registration of women overseas jobseekers has failed to attract expected level of response due to some factors including lower wage structure and security issues, especially for Saudi Arabia, said officials.
Only 158 women got enlisted in Dhaka division until Sunday. The registration was launched four days back.
Following a deal with Saudi Arabia to send domestic helps and good demand for the same in Hong Kong, the government took the step to enlist women overseas job seekers.
Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (EWOE) secretary Khandakar Iftekhar Haidar said the salary structure, as has been fixed for Saudi-bound female workers and some media reports on security aspects, might have discouraged the aspirants.
Dishonest recruiters might be involved with negative propaganda as they are not willing to take manpower from government database, he said.
He, however, expected that the number of jobseekers to increase as registration will continue till end of this month.
"We will review overall situation of registration programme today (Monday) as to why the jobseekers are not coming forward to be enlisted," the secretary also said.
Mr Haidar said if there is a lack of publicity, they will then go for campaigning about enrollment among the women aspirants.
Saudi Arabia will take 12 categories of workers in its housekeeping sector from Bangladesh. Of them, at first it will hire housemaids at a wages of Saudi Riyal 800.
Registration is taking place at the union, city and municipality digital centres and district manpower office from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm every day.
Aspirants can give choice for housekeeper, caregiver, babysitter, gardener, guard, cleaner, cook and worker for apparel sector as profession while registering themselves.
About 40,000 women foreign job seekers were enlisted under government database in 2013. Of them, a good number of workers secured jobs abroad, said officials.
More than 350,000 Bangladeshi female workers went abroad with jobs between 1991and February 2015. Of them maximum are in the Middle Eastern countries.
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