BD largely relies on KSA for manpower export

Bangladesh is now heavily dependent on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for overseas employment, as other traditional job markets slashed manpower recruitment from the country, officials statistics showed.

Data available at the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) revealed that nearly 74 per cent of the local outbound workers went to the KSA in January.

Bangladesh sent 69,988 workers to different countries in the first month of this year. Of the total workers, some 51,786 went to the KSA. The Middle East country hired about 57 per cent of the total Bangladeshi outbound workers in 2019.

Besides, about 4.1 million local workers have gone to Saudi Arabia since 1976.

Qatar has been the third largest country for local workers since 2016. But it drastically reduced manpower recruitment from Bangladesh.

Qatar hired up to 10,000 workers each month from Bangladesh before last March. But in the last three months it recruited only 4,699 workers. Of them 1,319 workers went to the country in January.

It stopped approving visas of Bangladeshi workers, as the country is balancing its quota for foreign workers.

But the country withdrew the restriction at the Joint Working Committee meeting in Doha recently, officials said.

But sector insiders said the number of overseas employment in Qatar is unlikely to increase in coming days, as the Arab country will not recruit unskilled workers.

However, Bangladesh is still struggling to develop required number of skilled workers for overseas markets in absence of necessary training materials and trainers.

If the country fails to create ample number of skilled workers, it may lose more overseas job opportunities abroad. The demand for unskilled workers is shrinking fast in different countries, including the Middle East ones, experts said.

Oman and Jordan also cut manpower recruitment in January. Oman is the second largest destination for Bangladeshi workers that hired 6,506 workers in this January. The country hired 8,327 workers in the same month last year.

Jordan hired 1,319 workers in this January, while the number was 1,661 in January 2019.

On the other hand, recruitment in Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain has been closed since long.

So, at this moment Saudi Arabia is lone market for Bangladeshi workers, where the outflow of workers remained steady, insiders said.

But a significant number of workers have been returning home from there since 2019 because of crackdown against irregular workers by Saudi authorities.

About 2,500 workers were deported home in the last three weeks from the KSA.

They spent a huge amount of money for going there that was usually collected through borrowing and selling assets.

Migration rights campaigners termed such deportation as 'alarming', as many workers went to the Arab country only two to three months back.

Some 24,281 workers were deported from Saudi Arabia last year. Of them, at least 1,200 were women workers.

The KSA has suspended recruiting foreign workers in 42 trades as part of its economic reformation. So if the workers are engaged in these trades, they will be arrested and deported home.

A delegation of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment visited the KSA last year, and met its authorities concerned to discuss about manpower-related issues. The two countries also agreed to combat visa trading, officials said.

Omar Faruque Chowdhury, Executive Director of Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program (OKUP), said overall situation of workers' demand in different countries should be analysed to explore new jobs.

He also said manpower export should not be dependent on a single state, as it is not sustainable for the country.

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