Home ›› 29 Dec 2021 ›› Front
After a severe shock from the raging pandemic, the country’s labour migration has come to the fore, with a record number of workers flying to their overseas job destinations while a lot many are in the queue.
The month of November witnessed a very good number of migrant labour travelling to their workplaces in the Middle-East while the trend continues to climb. In 2020, Bangladesh sent a total of 2,17,667 workers against its targeted one million overseas jobs.
Of the migrated labour, 1,81,218 alone were sent in the first three months although the Covid-19 hit the sector in March 2020.
The export of labour remained totally suspended for three months—April, May and June, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).
In the last six months from July to December Bangladesh sent only 36,451 workers mostly to Middle-East countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Amid the reality, 4,85,893 workers were sent abroad in the last 11 months in 2021.
During the period, 1,02,861 workers found job overseas in November, which is the highest ever job achievement in a single month.
Of the total, KSA hired 3,70,015 labour which is 76.15 per cent of the total, Oman employed the second highest 40,087 workers which is 8.25 per cent and Singapore hired 21,339 workers (4.39 per cent).
A total of 65,233 workers got jobs in October, 42,008 in September, 19,604 in August, 12,380 in July and 48,567 in June. Bangladesh sent 35,732 migrant workers in January which increased to 49,510 in February. A total of 61,653 workers found overseas jobs in March which fell down to nearly half 34,145 in April and again went down more than half to 14,200 in May.
Among the total, 68,579 female workers migrated in the last 11 months. The highest 46,361 female workers migrated to the KSA, mostly as domestic help. The second highest 11,697 workers mostly garment workers migrated to Jordan during the same time. Among others, Oman hired 7,645 female workers.
Bangladesh earned Tk 173,397 crore as remittance in the last 11 months. In 2020, remittance went up to Tk 184,699 crore.
Director General Md Shahidul Alam of the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) said Bangladesh sees an upward trend of labour migration as the Covid situation appears to be under control.
The trend continues as 63,574 migrant workers went overseas in the first 15 days of December 2021.
“We hope to see a record migration in December following that of November when the country sent the highest number of workers ever in a single month,” he said.
According to the Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad, Bangladesh started sending workers to a number of new destinations including Romania, Seychelles, Cambodia, Uzbekistan, Poland and Hungary.
“New labour markets have reopened in many countries including Malaysia and Greece,” he added.
Syed Saiful Haque, chairman, WARBE Development Foundation, a community-based migrants’ organisation in Bangladesh, told The Business Post it is a good sign for labour migration sector that the government has been able to find new labour market.
“We should also give emphasis on skilled manpower too,” he said, adding that ethical and regular migration is a must for the greater benefit of the workers.
When all financial sectors in the country were hit hard by the pandemic, remittance inflow to Bangladesh was stable which helped the country to cope up with the crisis even when many people lost their jobs and many returned to Bangladesh without belongings.
Migrants’ rights activists opine that if the government had a pragmatic plan about vaccination, Covid-19 test and airfare, more people would have been able to go abroad.
Bangladesh is one of the sixth highest labour sending countries in the global market with around 7.4 million migrant workers and was ranked eighth largest remittance receiving country last year, according to the World Migration Report 2022. The country sent 13.5 million workers overseas and earned the remittance of $ 252,287.11 since 1976, according to the BMET.
