National Employment Policy a welcome move

The government is set to launch the ‘National Employment Policy 2022,’ which was approved by the cabinet on April 6, 2022, according to a report published in The Business Post on Sunday. The main objective of the policy is to create employment opportunities for growing number of youths entering into in the labour market each year. The number of this new jobseekers group is around 22 lakh.

The new policy also aims to establish a society free of poverty and unemployment by making the manpower skilled and eligible for jobs. Currently, the country has more than six crore people capable of working and the policy was made to take measures to utilise them fully. This is also evident that high economic growth doesn’t often lead to high employment generation. Although the country’s GDP growth rate is more than 8 per cent, the job creation rate is only 3.32 per cent. This is the areas where the policy will focus on. High literacy rate may not also help reducing unemployment, as the rate of unemployment is high among the educated youths, which is 10.6 per cent. Besides, Bangladeshi workers are failing to make a mark in the international labour market amid stiff competition as 62 per cent of the expatriate workers are unskilled, 36 per cent are semi-skilled and only 2 per cent are skilled. This is another area where the policy aims to focus on.

In the domestic labour market, 15 per cent skilled workers are employed in the formal sector, while 85 per cent work in the informal sector, which makes the highest contribution to the national economy. The policy aims to ensure a safe and healthy environment for workers in the informal sector. Besides, half of the population is female and their participation in work has increased significantly, with the share of women rising to 30 per cent from only 7 per cent in 1983. Taking special measures for women workers has been recommended in the employment policy. The national employment policy will determine how and where this huge population can find sustainable employment. The policy also proposed unemployment allowance for those unable to get jobs but are willing to work.

The government has identified 11 challenges in implementing the plan to create skilled manpower by utilising the national employment policy. They are inadequate sector-based training centres with modern technology; a shortage of modern benefits, instruments, and skilled trainers; a lack of government and private initiatives; a lack of education and language proficiency of workers; weakness in operating and monitoring training institutes; and a lack of accurate data on manpower demand and supply in different sectors. The government also has a plan to establish 100 economic zones where around one crore people will be employed directly and indirectly. Every year, 18.4 lakh and five lakh jobs should be created at domestic and overseas levels respectively to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target by 2030. As per the policy, a national employment database will be prepared, using information from the national identity cards, which will have detailed data on professional and educational skills of the people.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), people who get less than one hour of paid work weekly are called unemployed. As per the latest survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country has 27 lakh unemployed people. The number is growing each year as new jobseekers are entering into the market. Formulation of the employment policy is no doubt a welcome move, particularly against the backdrop of two years of Covid-19 pandemic that led to massive job cuts in the private sector. This is apparent that the measures recommended in the policy have to be implemented by different government agencies. Coordination among the agencies is vital for achieving the objectives of the policy.