THE country’s overseas manpower market is shrinking, because of ongoing economic crisis at some places and political and military turmoil at others across the world, news report said while experts equally blame the inability and inefficiency of our government to maintain proper channel with the government of the recruiting countries and their employers in public and private sectors to keep the markets on hold. The most worrying factor is that since the Middle East and Gulf states are major destination of Bangladesh workers and as the conflict in the region is spreading, the market appears to be facing major risks of shrinking, if not a complete shut down from violence and military actions at different fronts.
The report has quoted an official of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) as saying that the country may face severe set back as most markets are closing to force Bangladesh to concentrate in sending workers to Qatar and Oman – two top destinations at the moment as UAE and Saudi Arabia have stopped recruitment for quite some time. Government manpower export figure for 2015 show more than 5.5 lakh Bangladeshi nationals have gone abroad for jobs during this period and nearly 80 per cent travelled to the Gulf and other Middle Eastern countries. Now that the region is becoming destabilized following the snatching of diplomatic ties by Saudi Arabia with Iran and about half a dozen Gulf countries joined the escalation, Bangladesh has a lot to think about new market. Experts believe that the government must take serious diplomatic efforts to protect the existing market and expand new market in Africa, and in East and South Asia where the situation is peaceful and faster economic growth needs more workers.
Many fear that the situation may not be the same this year as the last year when the highest number of workers went to Oman followed by Qatar. Insiders said recruitment by Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq drastically slowed down and in the new situation the need for foreign workers in those countries might suffer the major setback. Meanwhile Bangladesh manpower demand in Malaysia has also dropped mainly because of systemic problem how to recruit and who will oversee recruitment to make it transparent and free from corruption and exploitation of poor workers. The limited market in Europe has become almost shut following Syrian refugee crisis and tightening of their border and internal labour market.
Bangladesh is heavily dependent on expatriate remittance, besides finding jobs to young people entering job market every year. Any setback will bring catastrophe and we believe the government and private sector must work accordingly.
