Ahead of the Fifa World Cup 2022, Qatar is keen to hire more then 200,000 Bangladeshi workers this year, and over the next two years, they will take another 100,000 from Bangladesh.
After returning home from a three-day official visit to Qatar, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam yesterday told a press briefing at Probashi Kallyan Bhaban that Qatar would need to hire a lot of skilled and semi-skilled manpower ahead of the world cup.
“The prime minister of Qatar said his country would recruit a large number of Bangladeshi workers. The country has taken on huge development projects keeping the world cup in mind,” he said.
During the visit, Nurul met his Qatari counterpart Issa Saad Al-Fafali Al- Nuaimi, who assured him of hiring manpower from Bangladesh.
Last year, Qatar hired 123,956 workers, including 8,642 females, from Bangladesh. The number of female workers recruited in Qatar was 6,452 in 2014.
Nurul urged Bangladeshi migrants willing to go to Qatar to first receive training based on the demands of that country’s labour market.
“Wages for Bangladeshi workers and the migration cost will be discussed during a joint meeting which is likely to be held in March in Dhaka,” the minister said.
“The minimum wage for Bangladeshi migrants in Qatar is 700 Qatari Riyals but we proposed a minimum of 1,200 Riyals during the visit,” he said.
Nurul said Qatar would hire workers from Bangladesh in all sectors such as business, health, engineering, education and information technology.
During his visit, the minister also paid a courtesy call to Qatari Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani.