A NEW study revealed that around 13 per cent of the country’s garment factories has employed foreign experts in the top posts who remit over $5 billion from Bangladesh every year. The RMG Study 2016 carried by the Center for Policy Dialogue stated that among the large factories, the percentage of foreign employees even reached 47 per cent. It is observed that in absence of skilled workforce, particularly in merchandising, design and marketing as well as in operation of sophisticated machines, factory owners have hired experts from China, Taiwan, Japan, India and Pakistan to fill the gap. The shortage in the country’s labour market has prevailed for many years, but neither the industries nor the universities or the government come up to feel the market thrust from locals.
The study found that the productivity of workers has improved and reached 58.7 per cent. The productivity of woven factory workers is 4.3 percentage points higher than their fellow workers in knitwear factories. In 97.5 per cent of factories, there is no existence of trade unions and they only have workers’ participation committees. Interestingly, the study said, 19 per cent of the surveyed factories were set up after the Rana Plaza building collapse, indicating that investment took place despite the deadliest industrial disaster. The RMG is still the largest item in our export basket but the dearth of eligible manpower, however, deprive the country and foreigners remit million of dollar each year.
It is so unbelievable that after so many years of experience the garment sector find no expert management people in Bangladesh. It should have been the responsibility of the industries to train expert management people. It is shame for our industries to depend completely on outside management persons. There must some mystery.
