Move to produce quarterly labour market survey termed ambitious

Experts and senior statisticians termed Wednesday the move for producing quarterly labour market survey as an 'ambitious'  programme as the country's national statistical organisation has limited capacity.
They also said production of demand side data on job market will appear as a key challenge to the quarterly labour force estimation as the BBS so far did not conduct any survey on the matter.
They, however, said the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) should arrange adequate training to conduct such type of survey.
The BBS has been conducting labour force survey since 1980-81 fiscal year--- some were done on five-year interval, some four years and while some three years.
The BBS will conduct its quarterly labour force survey from July next. The labour market of July-September 2015 will be released sometime in October next.
Experts, mostly former senior officials of the BBS and representatives from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), expressed their views at the inception workshop of the LMIS project meant for releasing quarterly labour market data.
Jobdul Hoque, a former deputy director general at the BBS, said: "In my view, conducting survey on quarterly basis and subsequently releasing the concerned data is ambitious as the BBS has no capacity."
Earlier, BBS joint director and programme director Md Kabir Uddin Ahmed said the quarterly basis survey will provide both supply and demand side data.
TIM Nurunnabi Khan, a former senior programme officer of the ILO Bangladesh office said data of the demand side will not be available under the proposed survey.
He said the BBS should need further assessment on establishments and surveys on employers and employees both in private and public sectors to provide demand side data.
Kishore Kumar Singh, adviser of Improved Access to Skills of the ILO office said the survey needs to include disabled people.
However, speaking as the special guest, MA Mannan Howlader, an additional secretary to the statistics and informatics division (SID) said the BBS will embrace all the challenges.
"We're confident that we can do it," he said.
"Nothing is to be worried about," Mr Howlader added.
SID additional secretary Shafiqul Islam spoke as the chief guest while BBS director general Mohammed Abdul Wazed presided over the inception meeting held at its auditorium.
    jasimharoon@yahoo.com