Private recruiters will be allowed to send workers to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) provided they would maintain the service charge to be fixed by government, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (EWOE) Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain said on Monday.
Government is going to fix the service charges to the private recruiting agencies to send workers to Saudi Arabia .They cannot claim more charge than that of the fee, he said.
If the employers bear visa, air fare and other major expenses the migration cost will not be more than Tk 15,000 to Tk 20,000 each including the recruiter's service charge, the minister told a group of journalists a day after lifting of the ban on manpower recruitment by the KSA at his office in the city.
Saudi Arabia got clearance from the Royal Court on Sunday for resuming recruitment of Bangladeshi workers.
The formal export of Bangladeshi manpower to Saudi Arabia remained closed since 2008 following a restriction.
A high-level Saudi delegation comprising representatives from the ministries concerned of Saudi Arabia is expected to visit Bangladesh next week to formulate modalities of the recruitment.
Both the governments will discuss about the procedure of recruitment including migration cost.
"We will discuss how to minimise migration cost," he said adding that the KSA is also very considerate to reduce migration cost.
He, however, said if the visa trading is not stopped migration cost will not be come down.
Presently, workers spend between Tk 0.67 million and Tk 1.6 million as migration cost to secure job in Saudi Arabia, a Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) report said.
Although Bangladeshi workers were sent mainly to cleaning sector in the Middle Eastern (ME) country; presently it will recruit skilled workers from here, the minister said.
Bangladesh will offer the Saudi delegation to recruit semi-skilled workers also, he said. The manpower to KSA will be recruited from government's database. Around 2.2 million workers were enlisted in the government data bank.
Besides, the returnee workers who were employed in the well-known companies will be able to go to the oil-rich country again after being enlisted under government database.
Bangladesh is now providing training in 46 trades in technical training centres. If the workers need more training as per the ME country's demand, the Bangladesh government will provide it, he said.
Responding to a query, the EWOE minister said overseas job seekers will get Machine Readable Passport (MRP) in time. The Bangladeshis working in the KSA will not face any problem in this case.
The KSA started manpower recruitment from Bangladesh in 1976. In that year it hired 217 Bangladeshis.
The KSA recruited more than 0.1 million workers a year. But it declined to about 10,000 from 2008 following a restriction imposed by the Saudi government.
The oil-rich country is now recruiting only domestic workers from Bangladesh. Some 32,137 female workers went to the KSA from 1991to 2014.
In February 2014, KSA allowed Bangladeshi workers to transfer the much-awaited Iqama and jobs facilities. For this Bangladeshis were benefited in many ways.
Besides, nearly 0.8 million Bangladeshis availed amnesty announced by Saudi Arabia in 2013.
A total of 2.63 million Bangladeshis travelled to the KSA with jobs from 1976 to 2014, according to the BMET.
As per statistics released by the KSA on August 29, 2012, around 1.5 million Bangladeshis are working in the KSA.
arafat_ara@hotmail.com
Private recruiters may send workers to KSA
Arafat Ara | Published: February 03, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
Share if you like