Saudi Arabia recruited more than 30,000 women workers from Bangladesh in the last nine months of the current calendar year amid Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest data from the manpower bureau.
It showed that a total of 33,263 women workers went to Saudi Arabia during the January-September period of this year.
The data also found the gulf country hired about 68 per cent of the total women workers who went abroad from the country in the nine months of the current year.
The Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) data revealed that Bangladesh sent 49,129 women workers to foreign countries in the January to September period of this year.
Sector insiders said the demand for women workers in the gulf country has increased this year. Saudi Arabia is the country that recruits the highest number of workers including women from Bangladesh.
They, however, said recruitment by the Arab nation remained halted for a certain period in 2020 following the infection of coronavirus.
So, the number of outflow of workers to the country was only 12,735 in the entire calendar year of 2020.
The lower recruitment by Saudi Arabia impacted on the overall count of the women overseas jobs last year. The sector could add only 21,934 jobs for female workers in 2020.
Among other countries, Jordan hired 9,196 workers while Oman 4341, Qatar 1473, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) 509.
Migrant rights activists called for ensuring safe migration for women migrant workers as pandemic makes them more vulnerable than the male workers in workplaces.
Referring to the women workers' problems abroad, the rights activists said that the workload of women domestic helps had increased several times during the period.
A significant number of returnee female migrant workers failed to bring home their arrear wages and other dues from job destination countries, they also added.
Over 0.9 million Bangladeshi women workers went abroad with jobs since 1991, the data of BMET said.
