Rate of short-term contract labour migration jumps
Saturday, 1 December 2007
The annual flow of short term contract labour migration accelerated in the last six years jumping from 222,000 in 2000 to 377,600 last year, reports BSS.
According to a study conducted by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Bangladesh has already emerged as one of the major emigration countries with about 4.6 million Bangladeshis migrating abroad between 1972 and 2007 and a vast majority of the country's migrants are on short-term contract of three to ten years.
The job destinations of most of the migrants are Middle East and South East Asia (SEA).
The study said, generally, the huge majority of international migrants come from rural areas and poor households are increasingly participating in this process in order to contribute to the livelihood of their families.
Most of the short-term migrants are men and young who are in the age group of 15 to 30 and unskilled, often have little or no education and come often from moderate poor segments of rural areas, particularly from Brahmanbaria, Chandpur, Comilla, Chittagong, Dhaka, Feni, Gazipur, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Noakhali and Tangail.
Migration serves to reduce unemployment by working as a conduit for working age population. Migration has kept the unemployment rate virtually unchanged since the 1980s even though the growth rate of the labour force nearly doubled than the population growth rate in Bangladesh.
Migrant workers remit four to six times a year and the average annual amount is approximately 1000 dollars per person.
It is estimated that the level of income of the migrant households increased by 55 per cent in post-migration period. The money that migrants send back to their families largely used to meet household needs and basic consumption requirements.
According to a study conducted by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Bangladesh has already emerged as one of the major emigration countries with about 4.6 million Bangladeshis migrating abroad between 1972 and 2007 and a vast majority of the country's migrants are on short-term contract of three to ten years.
The job destinations of most of the migrants are Middle East and South East Asia (SEA).
The study said, generally, the huge majority of international migrants come from rural areas and poor households are increasingly participating in this process in order to contribute to the livelihood of their families.
Most of the short-term migrants are men and young who are in the age group of 15 to 30 and unskilled, often have little or no education and come often from moderate poor segments of rural areas, particularly from Brahmanbaria, Chandpur, Comilla, Chittagong, Dhaka, Feni, Gazipur, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Noakhali and Tangail.
Migration serves to reduce unemployment by working as a conduit for working age population. Migration has kept the unemployment rate virtually unchanged since the 1980s even though the growth rate of the labour force nearly doubled than the population growth rate in Bangladesh.
Migrant workers remit four to six times a year and the average annual amount is approximately 1000 dollars per person.
It is estimated that the level of income of the migrant households increased by 55 per cent in post-migration period. The money that migrants send back to their families largely used to meet household needs and basic consumption requirements.