Overseas job minister fears ‘dangerous’ future

The overseas employment minister himself fears a ‘dangerous’ future for the sector, if the migration cost is not reduced.
“They spend Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh to go abroad, but fail to earn the amount they spend during the tenure of service. At one stage they overstay and become irregular,” Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain told a dialogue in Dhaka yesterday.
The Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) organised it at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of Dhaka University. The topic was ‘incorporating the issues of migration in five years plan.’
The minister also pointed out that such a situation throws the country into difficulty in handling the migrants. “If such a trend cannot be stopped, the situation in the labour receiving countries will be the same as it was in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia,” Hossain said.
His remarks came at a time when overseas jobs are declining. Until February, the country sent 30,448 workers a month on average, while the figure was 39,606 in 2009, down from 72,921 in 2008, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET).
Such decline follows Malaysia’s freezing of hiring Bangladeshi workers in March last year and Saudi Arabia’s reducing jobs for the Bangladeshis since early 2008 and global economic downturn.
The minister said the government has taken an initiative to send workers abroad through BMET alongside the recruiting agencies.
“If BMET can send a worker at Tk 25,000 to Tk 30,000, recruiting agencies will face a pressure. They cannot, then, charge Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh,” he said.
The government is drafting a new law to regulate overseas recruitments to better protect the migrants.
In her keynote paper, RMMRU Chair Dr Tasneem Siddiqui proposed specialised training for the labour officers posted in Bangladesh missions abroad, allocation of adequate fund for workers’ skills development and formation of a separate rights and welfare directorate.
Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation Chairman Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said it is very important that Bangladesh trains up manpower on the basis of market needs.

Courtesy of The Daily Star