Bangladesh witnessed a two-pronged challenge in its migratory human resources in 2018 -- a drastic fall in overseas employment and a radical rise in the number of returnees.
Outbound jobs in both male and female categories shrank radically in the outgoing year.
New policies, economic reforms, slow development work and workplace exploitations in the receiving countries are said to have acted behind this drop in employment.
The massive influx of harassed female domestic helps from Saudi Arabia was a much-talked-about issue over the year, provoking a public outcry everywhere.
According to official figures, about 0.7 million workers migrated to different destinations until December 12 of 2018 against last year's 1.0 million.
The data available with the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) said some 232,619 workers went to Saudi Arabia from January to November.
The Gulf country recruited 513,862 workers in the corresponding period last year.
The largest destination for Bangladeshi workers banned 12 categories of jobs for foreign workers in early 2018 as part of its economic reforms.
This led to a massive shrinkage of job opportunities in the oil-rich country.
Following restrictions, the Bangladeshis who went to the KSA with individual visas were affected mostly, private recruitment agencies said.
Workers in their multitudes felt the pinch and thus returned home.
According to the welfare desk at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, more than 14,000 males had been home in the past eight months from the Gulf nation.
But rights activists said 100 hapless workers on average returned home daily.
Besides, Malaysia, another major recruiter of Bangladeshi manpower, stopped hiring in September 2018, overshadowing the overall migration sector.
The Southeast Asian country recruited more than 100,000 workers in 2017.
But due to an allegation of syndication and human trafficking in recruitment process, the Malaysian government suspended hiring from Bangladesh.
Nobody knows when the market will be reopened.
Bahrain has also made changes in their recruitment policy, making things worse for Bangladeshis.
Meanwhile, undocumented workers in the Gulf country are in fear of being deported.
What is more, Bangladeshis residing there are also struggling hard to survive as living cost increased significantly.
More than 2,000 women returned home from Saudi Arabia between January and December period in 2018.
Still many of them are staying at the Bangladesh mission-sponsored safe homes in Riyadh and Jeddah.
Having returned home, many victims said they faced different forms of harassment like denial of wages, sexual and psychological torture.
Last week, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) forecast that outbound jobs for women are likely to drop more than 20 per cent in 2018.
Because of workplace exploitations, women feel discouraged to go abroad, especially to Saudi Arabia, the key market for Bangladeshi domestic helps.
However, the RMMRU in its report said the country's inward remittance is expected to increase by about 15.59 per cent in 2018 compared to that of last year.
Remittance showed such a higher trend as the country sent a large number of workers last year, said Tasneem Siddiqui, founding chair of the RMMRU.
Presenting the report at a press conference, she said workers sent $14.34 billion remittance during the January-November period.
If the trend continues, the total inward remittance would stand at about $15.64 billion in 2018, Ms Siddiqui mentioned.
Usually, workers start sending remittance after one year of their migration. By this calculation, remittance earnings increased this year despite a decline in the outflow of workers, she observed.
The amount of remittance was $13.53 billion in 2017.
The number of outbound jobs fell mainly due to much reliance on traditional markets like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, the RMMRU chief stated.
If this lean situation continues, there might be a cloud lining on inward remittance in the coming years, she said on a downbeat note.
Talking to the FE, Syed Saiful Haque, chairman of WARBE Development Foundation, said market diversification and skill development are a must to increase the number of overseas employment.
A strong diplomatic initiative is also very crucial to protect workers' rights, he observed.
Over 12 million Bangladeshi workers have gone to 168 countries since 1976. Of them, 80 per cent migrated to the Middle-Eastern states, shows the BMET statistics.
