Skilled workers abroad to give a boost to remittance earnings

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already knocking at our doors. There is, therefore, no option but to strengthen our industrial competitiveness if we really mean sustainable growth for our economy. For that matter, we have to focus more sharply on technological innovation and capacity building across the economy.

The whole world has now opted for technological transformation for making the just transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. All our production and business processes, therefore, ought to change their gears for an ambitious transformation if we want to remain at the same pace with the global economy. 

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress toward ending poverty and sharing prosperity with more of its people. As recently as 2000, about one in three Bangladeshis lived in extreme poverty based on the national poverty line; today, this has fallen to 13 percent. The poorest 40 percent of the population also saw positive per person consumption growth. Like in most countries, a key reason was broad-based growth in earnings.

With more than 20 million people still living in extreme poverty and many workers with insecure jobs, Bangladesh cannot be complacent. It needs faster economic growth that can deliver more and better jobs for everyone. The economy has been good for jobs over the past decade. Between 2003 and 2015, jobs growth outpaced the growth of the working age population.

This not only cut unemployment rates but also brought millions of new workers into the labor market. Bangladesh has stood among the fastest growing economies in the world for over a decade, and has experienced consistent growth rates of over five percent since 2004. For 2020, the Asian Development Bank forecasted a growth rate of eight percent, the highest among all countries in the Asia and the Pacific.

Bangladesh has come a long way since its independence in 1971, on the back of a robust Readymade Garment led manufacturing growth, strides towards food sufficiency, and accelerated remittances from Bangladeshi citizens working abroad. The country is expecting to receive developing country status from the United Nations in 2024. However, while economic forecasts painted a rosy picture, performance in key economic indicators illustrates that Bangladesh must be wary of complacency, and exercise caution moving forward.

The coronavirus crisis may also reveal foundational cracks in the country’s key economic sectors, as Bangladesh braces for a hard brake to its remarkable growth rates. The number of Bangladeshi workers who headed to the Middle East countries in search of jobs surged 177 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months of this year.

The opening of the doors following the recovery of the oil-rich nations from the Covid-19 pandemic and a higher income thanks to a spike in energy prices owing to the Russia-Ukraine war have boosted the economic activities in the region and lifted the demand for foreign workers. The energy price hike, which saw the oil price rocket to an eight-year high, has been credited to have pulled the Gulf countries out of a decade-long economic slump. Crude oil prices plummeted to as low as $20 a barrel at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, but it climbed above $100 after Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year. As a result, energy exporting nations are expected to earn $1.3 trillion in revenues over a four-year period thanks to the current boom, said the International Monetary Fund recently. Since demand has recovered, Bangladesh sent around 7 lakh workers to the Middle East between January and August, up from 2.53 lakh during the same period last year.

Remittance receipts rose 12 per cent to $7.63 billion from January to August. It was $6.81 billion during the identical eight-month period last year. We must say the government should take initiative to send more skilled workers abroad to give a boost to remittance earnings.This national aspiration originates from its robust economic growth over the last couple of decades, particularly during the post-2009 period. According to a recent Standard Chartered Bank study, the nominal per capita GDP of Bangladesh during 2011-2018 was 9.4 per cent, the highest in emerging economies of Asia.

Defying the global pandemic, it maintained that lead with 7 per cent growth leaving both China and India far behind. Remaining largely oriented towards domestic consumption, the economy remains inclusive and sustainable with stunning macroeconomic stability despite some occasional hiccups. The perspective plan also aims at accelerating the productive capacity of the economy primarily through building up a knowledge economy with climate-friendly policies and programs.

Obviously, this aspirational development strategy can only be realised if we can further improve our total factor productivity by creating more jobs without compromising on our desire to accelerate the consistent growth of state-of-the-art export-oriented manufacturing and services as the core area of competitive strength. This is possible by making best use of the blended approach of both automation and reskilling of the existing workforce and skilling of the new ones. In addition, the country would like to advance in technological innovations and prepare the workforce accordingly.

Recently, Bangladesh has been showing its added ambitions of becoming more climate resilient by pushing entrepreneurial development in renewable energy, other green industries, and agricultural processes with a huge scope of creating more employment for productive and technology-ready human capital including desired skills development. Simultaneously, we will have to look for the just transition and modernisation for skill development of the workforce in the new context of addressing the climate challenges.

There is apparently no scope of avoiding automation which may have serious implications for job losses for the low-skilled workforce in our country. So, reskilling and upskilling of the existing workforce and reforming the education and training systems to supply job-ready newer versions of high-skilled work forces may be the only options left for us if we want to remain globally competitive. We must, therefore, redesign our skills development policy for preparing the existing and emerging workforces for the labour market of the future.

Education and skills are important prerequisites for faster economic and social development of a country. A skilled workforce is an asset and helps in ensuring enhanced productivity, adoption of new technology, global competitiveness, increased income and reduction of poverty. Those trained in many cases do not get employment opportunities in the relevant field. The Skills Development Policy, 2011 highlights the importance of a coordinated effort to contribute to attaining the country’s middle-income status by 2021.

Bangladesh depends substantially on remittances received from its workers in many countries of the world, to meet its foreign exchange needs. It is extremely important to focus on skills requirements in these countries to improve foreign exchange earnings which is not growing at an expected rate. According to the Labour Force Survey 2017, there are 63.4 million economically active population over 15 years of which 60.7 million are employed. There is under-employment and also many who are aspiring to change their jobs and move to high-paid jobs. The labour force of the country is growing at a rate of 1.3 million per year about half of whom are women. To achieve a better workforce, there is no alternative to building higher skills of the people. Continuous job creation should be the foremost priority of the policy-makers to alleviate poverty by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goal 8 requires us to achieve full and productive employment, and decent work, for all women and men by 2030.

For this, along with increasing the vocational training opportunities, formal education in colleges and universities need to be restructured further to cater to the needs of the modern times. The teacher training curricula should also be revisited regularly to keep up with the demand of the education system. Another area that needs strengthening is industry-based skills development programmes to cater to not only the present needs but also the future needs for workers. Fortunately, Bangladesh is now moving in this direction and the Ministry of Education has been restructuring its policy to prepare the new generation to meet the new challenge originating from both technological and climate changes.

Its greater focus on technical and vocational education is a step in the right direction. However, the challenges, particularly arising out of multiple divides in the education system of Bangladesh, can hardly be overemphasised. The human capital including skills developments cannot be the sole prerogative of the government. Multiple actors, including the private sector, not-for-profit actors, NGOs, civil society, and several development partners that are involved in this sector must also play their due roles.

The writer is a researcher and columnist. He can be contacted at raihan567@yahoo.com