THE unemployment rate among the educated youth is quite high as much as 33.2 per cent in the country. Against the shrinking job market due to automation, skill-gap, and foreigners’ dominance in managerial positions, the government’s focus on employment generation is not visible. A recent research of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) stated that the unemployment rate among the Bachelor’s degree holders is 33.6 per cent while among the Master’s degree holders 34.3 per cent. Unemployment is comparatively low among the SCC and HSC passed people, which are 26.79 per cent and 27.95 per cent respectively.
Not only that, the unemployment rate among educated female youth and educated youth from villages are also high – 38.1 per cent and 46.22 per cent respectively – than their counterparts from the male group and city youths. According to the study, only 48.7 per cent youth aged between 18 and 35 years with at least SSC degree and up to Master’s degree have fulltime employment and 18.1 per cent are engaged in part-time employment. Earlier, a World Bank study based on Labour Force Survey in 2016 also found youth unemployment around one-third while another study conducted under the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project of the government found that 38 per cent graduates were unemployed. The study had also revealed that the employment outcome is better for those studied in private institutions compared to those studied at public institutions.
The government seems not to have any worry that huge number of educated people remaining unused and unemployed. Any government will find such a situation explosive. But finding the people tolerating every wrong, though the working people in various sectors are going for strike, the government cannot see any threat from the unemployment crisis. The Finance Minister is anxious to assure all that for the good deeds the Prime Minister has done for the people she will go to heaven in the next world.
The Finance Minister is sure of the easy money getting from our workers abroad earning through the hardest way. There is another source of income and that is the garment sector. So the Finance Minister has no need to play any role for mending the broken economy. He has no time to think how to create conditions for job through investment. He should have been the Information Minister and not the Finance Minister. He does not know his job, not even trying to learn. He is enjoying his position in power and we wish him luck looking after himself.
