The prevailing political uncertainty has hit country’s overseas job sector hard as fresh recruitments from some prospective countries have virtually come to a halt, said officials.
They said although some more countries had shown interest earlier to recruit manpower from Bangladesh, they are now reluctant about this.“Generally a country doesn’t want to go for a deal with an unstable government. The ministry is also now unable to pay proper attention for the development of the sector amidst such a political situation,” said a top Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment ministry official preferring anonymity.
“So we are unable to go for market expansion programme,” he said.
Bangladesh received assurances from Bahrain, Iraq and Qatar to send a large number of workers. Besides, Malaysia and Hong Kong resumed recruiting Bangladeshis. But there is no visible progress in this regard.
The manpower sector has been facing a sluggish trend for a long time and the present situation added hurdles to increasing job opportunities.
Outbound workers also are facing immense sufferings while departing and returning home, as the country is experiencing continuous blockade and strike.
Despite huge demand, Bangladesh was unable to send a significant number of workers to Malaysia and Hong Kong so far. It is now harder to tap the potentials of those countries for the political turmoil, opined experts.
They said the fate of more than 1.9 million aspirants, enlisted earlier under government’s registration programme, are in an uncertain position about going to their desired job destinations.
A Qatari delegation visited Bangladesh in January this year. They said they were satisfied over Bangladesh’s training centres for creating skilled workers and that they would consider recruitment of labour.
The authority here assured them of supplying all types of labour according to their demand. But the market is yet to open.
Qatar needs thousands of workers for development of its infrastructure as it is the host country of World Cup Football 2022.
On the other hand, Bangladesh inked a deal with Hong Kong earlier this year where the labour receiving country showed interest in recruiting 80,000 female workers within a year. It needs nearly 0.5 million domestic help, it said.
But so far only 100 workers were able to go to the country due to unavailability of training facilities.
Malaysia received only 1300 workers after signing of a deal in November last year.
Experts said a minimum 1.0 million people could get jobs a year in the international market following growing demand for foreign workers in different countries.
However, Bangladesh was unable to send half the workers in the current calendar year. Only 371,647 Bangladeshis got overseas jobs during the last 11 months (January to November), a source said.
After 1976, nearly 8.0 million people went to different countries with jobs.
-With The Financial Express input
