THE World Bank in a report published in The New Nation on Monday said Bangladesh faces the biggest challenge of providing jobs to more than 21 million people who will enter the country’s labour market in the next one decade. It means the country has to create two million jobs annually to absorb the exponentially growing population in the economy. It appears a highly uphill task when the country is facing security threats, political instability and shortage of infrastructure and adequate supply of energy to run mills and factories.
The target therefore appears quite difficult when out of present 103 million workforce only more than half to the tune of 58.1 million are employed. The remaining workforce is unemployed. It has then suggested that the impossible can be made possible by using labour more intensively to increase the growth and this in turn can absorb the additional labour. The cost of failing will be too big. As per the WB analysis Bangladesh economy has the potentials to achieve the targets to become a middle income nation soon by reducing poverty and sharing prosperity to all. What it needs is to fully exploit knowledge, resources, the labour force and export markets; the conditions which are directly related to the quality of political leadership and ambition they have to reach the goals. Bangladesh was able to double exports from 1995 to 2013 the WB said. But as it appears the next course of events depends, on the leaders’ vision whether they want to give priority to volatile politics or business and economic development will drive their vision for change over power struggle. The whole growth projection by the WB now depends on how the government wants to handle economic issues; which would create jobs and income generating activities. The concerns are there because Bangladesh exports are significantly slowing down and specially the garment exports are on steady decline with slowdown in local and foreign investments in the economy.
The WB analysis showed since 2009, Bangladesh has become the world’s second largest garment exporter where the share of manufacturing sector to the total economy was uniquely 90.5 percent in 2013 compared with about 26.2 percent in other LDCs on an average. Contrary to the recent bleak scenario the WB projection also said Bangladesh can create new market in China, India and Japan and enter other ASEAN countries to create 5.4 million new jobs and 13.5 million new indirect jobs by 2021 if it wants to keep the growth trajectory steady. These would be enough to create new jobs for new workforce but the country needs stability, energy and environment to make risk free investment. It is time Bangladesh must make the choice.
