Manpower export from Bangladesh hits new high

Bangladesh's manpower export hit a new high in the fiscal year 2021-22 on post-pandemic rebound of the overseas job market as nearly a million found employment across the world following good demand for Bangladeshi workers.

Sources painted such a sound picture of the country's wage-earner sector-a main source of its foreign currency reserves-as data available with the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) showed a total of 988_112 workers having gone abroad in the last fiscal year.

This happens to be the highest number of annual overseas jobs for Bangladeshis in the last seven years.

Officials hope the outflow of workers would increase in the current fiscal year as Malaysia is going to restart hiring manpower from the country_ following a negotiated deal.

The statistics showed that a low number of 271_445 workers found jobs in FY2020-21 in the pandemic prime time while 498_983 in 2019-20_ 659_044 in 2018-19_ 866_417 in 2017-18_ 893_736 in 2016-17 and 672_721 in 2015-16.

Md Shahidul Alam_ director-general of the BMET_ said they had a target of sending 400_000 workers abroad in the last fiscal. But they finally could send about 1.0 million workers.

The South Asian nation now has set a target to send 700_000 workers in the current financial year (2022-23)_ which could also be overwhelmed.

The monthly figures of overseas employment in the BMET revealed that a total of 111_539 workers went abroad in June alone.

The workers went mainly to 20 countries in June_ and Saudi Arabia received the highest 63 per cent or 385_595 workers. Oman hosted 83_764_ the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 65_351_ Singapore 29_093_ Qatar 10_199 and Jordan 8_628.

Remittance is a vital source for Bangladesh's forex reserves. Migrant workers sent home over $21.03 billion in the just-concluded fiscal year_ according to the Central Bank data.

More than 13 million Bangladeshi workers have gone abroad for jobs since 1976_ BMET figures show. Most of them secured employments in the Middle-Eastern economies.