Monirul Alam :
Non-expanding labour market against rising demand is leaving behind hundreds of youth population in Bangladesh unemployed, which has been listed as a fault line in the country’s prospect in graduating to the ‘developing nation’ category.
This observation was made in a report titled ‘The Ignored Generation: Exploring the dynamics of youth employment in Bangladesh’ carried out in the mid-October this year under the joint sponsorship of the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs (CPSDGs), Bangladesh and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Dhaka Office. Some 17 local and multinational non-government organizations have contributed to preparing this report.
The report co-authored by Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, and Syed Yusuf Saadat, Research Associate of Centre for Policy Dialogue.
“With a large youth population, Bangladesh faces the challenges of harvesting the benefits of a demographic dividend. In recent years, the labour market has been struggling to absorb the increasing number of young job-seekers. This disconcerting trend remains a fault line in Bangladesh’s prospect of graduating from the least developed country (LDC) category with a momentum,” observed the report.
According to the Labour Force Survey (2016-17) of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), total population within age bracket of 15 to 24 years stood 2.77 crore and 80 lakh of them found with the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) status.
The BBS survey reveals the country’s overall unemployment rate 4.2 percent of workable manpower while the rate of youth unemployment was as high as 10.6 percent. The share of unemployed youth in total unemployment is 79.6 per cent.
More strikingly, the CPSDGs say, the unemployment rate among youth having a tertiary level education found 13.4 per cent. The BBS survey 2016-17 also indicates that unemployment is highest among youths having secondary level of education (28 per cent) and 29.8 per cent youth with NEET status.
“This suggests that, in Bangladesh, education is not empowering youth with the right set of skills to be employable in the economy,” the CPSDGs report stated.
The report says the challenge of youth unemployment is evident in Bangladesh.
The CPSDGs report found that skills gap, lack of resources and prevalence of corruption were listed as major reasons for them to remain with the status of unemployment. Other reasons included, according to CPSDGs report, limited opportunity to be entrepreneurs, difficulties for female job-seekers, lack of access to computers and internet, reduced employment prospects due to bribery and corruption, resource constraint inhibiting education and income opportunity, unreasonable experience requirements by employers, discrimination against minority groups, waiting for government jobs and mental health and drug addiction.
It also says that acute unemployment among the young population implies that Bangladesh is not being able to yield benefit from ‘demographic dividend’.
“In least developed and developing countries, the problem of youth unemployment is exacerbated by poverty and inequality. Competition from a rapidly growing labour force is also very high in these countries, as the economies cannot create enough jobs. Due to poor labour market policies and inadequate social safety net programmes, the youth have no choice but to rely on support from families. However, families themselves may often have limited resource to support them. Thus, in many cases, youth may end up with jobs in the low-paid informal labour market.”
The CPSDGs report maintained that the government must ensure a decent income to its citizens through generating employment opportunities as Bangladesh is surging towards a developing country, aspires to become a developed country by 2041 and is also committed to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The report says the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises the urgent need to create decent work for the youth in order to alleviate poverty and accelerate economic growth.
“In view of high youth unemployment and the commitment of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to fulfil the SDGs, this study has been undertaken to discern the factors that contribute to youth unemployment in the current economic and social context of Bangladesh and how to overcome the problem.”
It said the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2017 has some fundamental flaws. In essence, the NYP 2017 is a policy document, which neither grounded on data nor can it be evaluated through data.
“Thus, the NYP 2017 often makes bold declarations, which are not based on ground realities. In sum, it only lists a set of objectives under various themes without any concrete targets and implementation plan. As a result, this policy cannot provide any outlook for the youth of the country. Thus, when the NYP will be reviewed after five years, as was planned (by Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2017), there will be no scope for an objective evaluation of the implementation status of the policy,” remarks the CPSDGs report.
A number of targets under various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directly address issues that are pertinent to youth employment as well as their literacy and skills development. It is evident that the indomitable spirit of youth must be harnessed in the quest of accomplishing the ambitious goal of transforming our world.
Based on the findings of this research, the following recommendations are made to address the issue of youth unemployment in Bangladesh. These are improved education system, availability of technology and internet, skills development through technical and vocational training, fair opportunity for all in the job market, access to information at national, regional and local levels, self-employment through entrepreneurship, students-to-employers connection, career counselling from an early stage, enabling environment for female youth, employment opportunities abroad.
The Citizen’s Platform for SDGs was formally launched in June 2016, at the initiative of a group of individuals; the objective has been to track the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh and enhance accountability in its implementation process.
Non-expanding labour market against rising demand is leaving behind hundreds of youth population in Bangladesh unemployed, which has been listed as a fault line in the country’s prospect in graduating to the ‘developing nation’ category.
This observation was made in a report titled ‘The Ignored Generation: Exploring the dynamics of youth employment in Bangladesh’ carried out in the mid-October this year under the joint sponsorship of the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs (CPSDGs), Bangladesh and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Dhaka Office. Some 17 local and multinational non-government organizations have contributed to preparing this report.
The report co-authored by Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, and Syed Yusuf Saadat, Research Associate of Centre for Policy Dialogue.
“With a large youth population, Bangladesh faces the challenges of harvesting the benefits of a demographic dividend. In recent years, the labour market has been struggling to absorb the increasing number of young job-seekers. This disconcerting trend remains a fault line in Bangladesh’s prospect of graduating from the least developed country (LDC) category with a momentum,” observed the report.
According to the Labour Force Survey (2016-17) of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), total population within age bracket of 15 to 24 years stood 2.77 crore and 80 lakh of them found with the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) status.
The BBS survey reveals the country’s overall unemployment rate 4.2 percent of workable manpower while the rate of youth unemployment was as high as 10.6 percent. The share of unemployed youth in total unemployment is 79.6 per cent.
More strikingly, the CPSDGs say, the unemployment rate among youth having a tertiary level education found 13.4 per cent. The BBS survey 2016-17 also indicates that unemployment is highest among youths having secondary level of education (28 per cent) and 29.8 per cent youth with NEET status.
“This suggests that, in Bangladesh, education is not empowering youth with the right set of skills to be employable in the economy,” the CPSDGs report stated.
The report says the challenge of youth unemployment is evident in Bangladesh.
The CPSDGs report found that skills gap, lack of resources and prevalence of corruption were listed as major reasons for them to remain with the status of unemployment. Other reasons included, according to CPSDGs report, limited opportunity to be entrepreneurs, difficulties for female job-seekers, lack of access to computers and internet, reduced employment prospects due to bribery and corruption, resource constraint inhibiting education and income opportunity, unreasonable experience requirements by employers, discrimination against minority groups, waiting for government jobs and mental health and drug addiction.
It also says that acute unemployment among the young population implies that Bangladesh is not being able to yield benefit from ‘demographic dividend’.
“In least developed and developing countries, the problem of youth unemployment is exacerbated by poverty and inequality. Competition from a rapidly growing labour force is also very high in these countries, as the economies cannot create enough jobs. Due to poor labour market policies and inadequate social safety net programmes, the youth have no choice but to rely on support from families. However, families themselves may often have limited resource to support them. Thus, in many cases, youth may end up with jobs in the low-paid informal labour market.”
The CPSDGs report maintained that the government must ensure a decent income to its citizens through generating employment opportunities as Bangladesh is surging towards a developing country, aspires to become a developed country by 2041 and is also committed to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The report says the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises the urgent need to create decent work for the youth in order to alleviate poverty and accelerate economic growth.
“In view of high youth unemployment and the commitment of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) to fulfil the SDGs, this study has been undertaken to discern the factors that contribute to youth unemployment in the current economic and social context of Bangladesh and how to overcome the problem.”
It said the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2017 has some fundamental flaws. In essence, the NYP 2017 is a policy document, which neither grounded on data nor can it be evaluated through data.
“Thus, the NYP 2017 often makes bold declarations, which are not based on ground realities. In sum, it only lists a set of objectives under various themes without any concrete targets and implementation plan. As a result, this policy cannot provide any outlook for the youth of the country. Thus, when the NYP will be reviewed after five years, as was planned (by Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2017), there will be no scope for an objective evaluation of the implementation status of the policy,” remarks the CPSDGs report.
A number of targets under various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directly address issues that are pertinent to youth employment as well as their literacy and skills development. It is evident that the indomitable spirit of youth must be harnessed in the quest of accomplishing the ambitious goal of transforming our world.
Based on the findings of this research, the following recommendations are made to address the issue of youth unemployment in Bangladesh. These are improved education system, availability of technology and internet, skills development through technical and vocational training, fair opportunity for all in the job market, access to information at national, regional and local levels, self-employment through entrepreneurship, students-to-employers connection, career counselling from an early stage, enabling environment for female youth, employment opportunities abroad.
The Citizen’s Platform for SDGs was formally launched in June 2016, at the initiative of a group of individuals; the objective has been to track the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh and enhance accountability in its implementation process.
