Porimol Palma
Bangladesh is likely to experience a sharp fall in overseas employment from February due to slowdown in construction industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Middle Eastern countries following sharp price fall of oil, say officials and businesses.
The decline in overseas jobs is likely to be acute as Bangladesh’s traditional major labour markets — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Malaysia and Kuwait — have already significantly reduced the number of job visas. Only the UAE is still hiring almost half the total number of workers now.
Of the total about 8.31 lakh jobseekers who found overseas jobs until November this year, the UAE employed about 3.95 lakh. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia recruited about 1.31 lakh workers, Malaysia about 1.25 lakh, Singapore 52,951 and Oman 50,221, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET).
“The decline in the number of workers going abroad is not evident yet. But it will be clear from February because the construction sector that saw a boom in the wake of oil price hike in recent past is now slowing down,” says a BMET official.
The official’s statement is reflected in recent remarks of two mega construction companies of the Emirates.
Dubai property giant Nakheel — behind grandiose projects like a one-kilometre tower and artificial palm-shaped islands — said on November 30 it has fired 500 staffs because of the global financial crisis.
The government-controlled developer, one of the biggest employers, also said in a statement it would be scaling back work on some of its projects. The job cut is responsible action in light of the current global market conditions, it noted.
Another Dubai developer Meraas said it was reviewing plans for a massive $95 billion housing project in a sign the global economic crisis is beginning to hit the booming city-state, reports AFP.
“We are simply reviewing our business strategy, as well as the phasing and rollout of the Jumeira Gardens project to make sure the development proceeds in the most opportune way to meet changing investor needs,” the company says.
Besides construction workers, a good number of Bangladeshis also work in the restaurants in the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries. They are also concerned over future job cuts.
Swapan Rozario, a cook at a restaurant in Dubai, told The Daily Star over phone: “Customers are very thin in the restaurants. We never know what will happen next.”
When this is the scenario in the Middle East, other labour hiring countries like Singapore, South Korea or Qatar employ small number of workers from Bangladesh.
A manpower agent dealing mostly with Saudi Arabia said the case in Saudi Arabia is no different from that in the UAE.
“But there are some countries — Libya, Sudan, Lebanon and Syria — which have good demand for Bangladeshi workers. The government, however, has not paid much attention to these countries,” says the BMET official.
Many construction projects are being launched in Sudan and the country has a huge demand of labours. But there is no initiative on part of Bangladesh to send workers there, says an official at the Ministry of Labour.
“Already, Sudanese employers have sent a good number of job demand letters, but workers could not be sent due to bureaucratic tangles,” the official adds.
Libya is another country, which has signed a memorandum of understanding to hire workers from Bangladesh. But the Bangladesh embassy’s role so far has not been found very positive, said Abdul Alim, member of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA).
“Our embassies in many countries don’t play a positive role to facilitate overseas employment,” he said.
The next government’s first task in the sector should be to tap the potential job markets and improve relations with the major manpower importing countries, he added.
The new openings for Bangladesh are Romania and Russia, Alim said, suggesting that the government put special emphasis on these markets because employment in these countries will fetch much more remittance.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
