Overseas jobs on wane for 1.5 years

The country's overseas employment continued to decline over the last one and a half years due to the government's lack of policy initiatives to create new foreign jobs, said sector insiders.
According to the data of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), a total of 207,957 Bangladeshis went abroad with jobs during the first six months of calendar year 2014, whereas the number was 208,340 in the corresponding period of 2013.
But the figure of overseas employment was 303,899 during the first six months of 2012, the data showed.
Manpower exporters said the overseas job sector is passing through hard times. Presently there are little scopes to send workers abroad, as most of the middle-eastern markets remain close for Bangladeshi workers.  
Besides, others potential markets, like - Libya and Iraq, are now vulnerable due to political conflict.
Although the Malaysian market can be a potential one for Bangladeshis, it remains untapped, following lack of proper policy by the government, they also said.
As per BMET data, during January and June of the calendar year 2014, Oman recruited 54,284 Bangladeshi workers, Qatar 37,758, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 11,536, Bahrain 10,413, Lebanon 7,210, Saudi Arabia 6,665 and Malaysia 3,169 workers.
Despite a large demand the government was unable to send the expected number of workers to Malaysia, which could have helped the country recover from the deplorable situation, the sector insiders said.
Migration experts blamed the government-to-government (G-to-G) migration process, saying it is one of the main reasons for failing to send the targeted number of workers there.
The falling trend of the job-seekers' movement also brought a negative impact on the country's remittance inflow.
The remittance inflow declined by 1.61 per cent to US$14.23 billion in the fiscal year 2013-14 from $14.46 billion a year ago, according to the central bank statistics.
As per BMET data, some 409,253 workers went abroad with jobs in 2013, declining from 607,798 in 2012.
After 1976, nearly 8.90 million Bangladeshis went to different countries with jobs, according to the official data.