by Naim-Ul-Karim
DHAKA, Jan 30 (NNN-XINHUA) – Remittance-reliant Bangladesh witnessed a big boom in overseas employment last year, amid growing demand of huge workforce particularly in the Middle East and Asian countries, a senior official said yesterday.
The official of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), told Xinhua that, “1,135,873 Bangladeshis in 2022, found overseas jobs, a rise of more than 84 percent over the same period of the previous year.”
Huge demand for mostly blue-collar jobs helped more Bangladeshi job aspirants to find overseas employment last year, said the official, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Of the total overseas employment 2022, the official said, more than half of Bangladeshi workers found jobs in Saudi Arabia.
According to the BMET statistics, 612,418 Bangladeshi secured jobs in Saudi Arabia, 179,612 in Oman, 101,775 in the United Arab Emirates, 64,383 in Singapore and 50,090 in Malaysia, in 2022. The overseas jobs for Bangladeshis in 2021 stood at 617,209.
The BMET official expressed hope that the soaring trend in overseas employment would continue this year, as Bangladesh-based recruiting agencies are getting more appointment letters for workers this year.
Bangladeshi Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister, Imran Ahmed, said recently that, many more Bangladeshis would be able to go abroad with overseas employment this year, if the current trend continued.
“We’re planning to send 15 lakh Bangladeshi workers abroad this year,” said the minister, adding, the labour market for Bangladeshis is growing.
According to the minister, some 14 million Bangladeshis have currently been living and working in about 162 countries and regions.
The minister said, his government has long been trying to send more Bangladeshis abroad, alongside protecting the existing destinations.
He said, they were working to create more employment opportunities for Bangladeshis in Australia, Thailand and Europe, among others.
“We’re also planning to send more workers to Libya this year,” Ahmed said.
The flow of remittances in the first half of the current 2022-23 fiscal year (Jul 2022-Jun 2023) rose 2.48 percent to 10,493.25 million U.S. dollars, data from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) showed.
The country’s 2021-22 fiscal year (Jul 2021-Jun 2022) remittance inflow dipped 15 percent to 21.03 billion dollars.
Officials expect a boom in the inflow of remittances in the near future, as a soaring trend in employment in traditional Middle Eastern and Asian countries would likely continue this year.– NNN-XINHUA
