Job fair begins May 24

A seven-day job fair begins May 24 for the spot listing of female job-seekers for sending to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), as a government drive to make database of aspirants has drawn a lukewarm response.
The countrywide direct-listing programme has been planned as Saudi Arabia wants to recruit more than 20,000 female workers before Ramadan, officials said.
In the meantime, the government registration drive for female workers hasn't got expected level of response.
The job fair will be held at the district manpower offices and technical training centres (TTCs) across the country on May 24-30, said a Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) official.
Some 114 recruitment agencies will collect and motivate females for jobs in the oil-rich country to help increase the number of registrations under the government database, he said.
Earlier, only about 3,000 women were listed under the database against a big demand from the Saudi side.
Last week, deputy minister for international affairs, the ministry of labour in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Alfahid had expressed his government's willingness to recruit 50,000 domestic helps from Bangladesh before the holy month of fasting begins.    
And Bangladesh has decided to send about 20,000 workers within the period to the Middle-Eastern country.
Already the country has prepared 30,000 visas for female workers, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (EWOE) Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain told journalists after a meeting with the visiting deputy minister.
Last February, the two countries signed an MoU on the hiring of 12 categories of workers in housekeeping sector from Bangladesh, with minimum wages fixed at 800 Saudi Riyals worth Tk 16,564 each.
The latest development on manpower front, incidentally, gained ground at a time when newswires reported Sunday that Libya's official government banned Bangladeshi workers from entering the country because many were trying to travel illegally by boat to Europe.
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