Although Bangladesh's labour export shot up by 260% during the January-May period of this calendar year, compared to the same period of 2021, the prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict and growing high cost of living may ruin the flow of the country's labour export to different countries.
However, labour exports dropped nearly 25% in May compared to the previous month, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).
Bangladesh exported 77,421 workers to different countries in May, as against 103,975 in April.
As the Russia-Ukraine war began February, industrialists and businessmen in labour importing countries may slow down recruitment of workers on grounds of high cost of living and possible social unrest, said a leading labour exporter.
According to data from the BMET, Bangladesh exported a record 503,979 workers to overseas countries during the January-May'22 period as against 195,240 workers during the same period last year.
Saudi Arabia was the top destination of Bangladeshi workers with 313,675 workers (over 62.24% of the market share) followed by Oman with 69,082 workers (13.71%), UAE with 57,988 workers (11.51%), Singapore with 23,935 (4.75%), Jordan with 7,473 workers (1.48%), Qatar with 4496 (1.55%), Kuwait with 4,112 workers (0.83%), Italy with 633 workers (0.13%) and UK with 127 workers (0.03%), according to BMET data.
Bangladesh exported a total of 1,008,525 workers in 2017, the highest number in one year, during the last 50 years.
With Malaysia set to reopen soon after visit of Malaysian Human Resources Minister M Saravanan to Bangladesh recently, Bangladesh can export some 1-1.2 million workers, and surpass the previous highest record in exporting labour to overseas countries, based on the current statistics, said SM Zillur Rahman, chairman of Rahman Group, and former director of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI).
As labour export gains momentum in 2022, the government should also devise mid and long-term strategies to send more skilled workers abroad since some closed labour markets are expected to reopen later this year, he also said.
Rahman also mentioned that massive vaccination of the country’s population also helped Bangladesh to attain the present momentum in labour export.
Economies of major Gulf countries and Southeast Asian countries are also getting back on the right track that also help to get present momentum, he opined.
Bangladesh exported 700,159 workers in 2019, 734,181 in 2018 and 1,008,525 workers in 2017.
Malaysia reopening
Bangladesh is going to resume sending workers to Malaysia this month, as issues relevant to the matter have finally been resolved in the meeting, five months after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
"Workers will start going to Malaysia by the end of this June. I hope there will be no more meetings to open the market," Minister for Expatriate Welfare Imran Ahmed told reporters after a meeting of the Joint Working Group of the two countries in Dhaka.
Malaysian Human Resources Minister M Saravanan led the Malaysian delegation.
"Around 200,000 workers may go to Malaysia in a year. Their minimum salary will be 1,500 Malaysian Ringgit per month and the migration cost will be less than Tk1.6 lakh," he added.
Imran Ahmed said according to the MoU signed in December 2021, 500,000 people would migrate to Malaysia in five years.
However, if other countries did not send workers to Malaysia – where the demand for labour is huge – Bangladesh could send 500,000 people this year alone.
Bangladesh has left it up to Malaysia to decide how many agencies will send people from Bangladesh to Malaysia.
According to Malaysia's proposal, a syndicate of 25 recruiting agencies will send people to that country, said the recruiters who have been protesting against the syndicate.
The Malaysian government is expected to recruit some 600,000 foreign workers this year and Bangladesh is working on exploring the maximum quota, said an official present in that meeting.
Bangladesh sent a total of 10,57,223 workers to Malaysia during the period of 1976-2021.
The country exported 175,927 workers in 2018 and only 545 workers, 125 workers and 24 workers in 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
The country exported only a total of 34 workers during the January-March period of the current calendar year
Proper training of Bangladeshi workers is important on some issues to regain labour markets in Qatar and Kuwait, as some young Bangladeshis engage themselves in crime to become rich overnight. Though the number of Bangladeshis engaging in crime is less than 0.002%, the negative incidents are highlighted as the crime law is relaxed in Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Oman compared to the strict laws in Saudi Arabia , said a person who works in the mission of a Gulf country in Dhaka.
As the pandemic has improved in recent times, the government should plan to send more skilled workers abroad this year, since some closed labour markets are expected to reopen this year, according to a member of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA).
Ali Haider Chowdhury, former secretary general of BAIRA, told this correspondent that the UAE has opened its labour market to Bangladeshis and the labour export to this Gulf market may reach 50,000 next year.
Bangladesh exported a total of 93 workers to Kuwait in 2021, 1744 workers in 2020, 12,299 in 2019 and 27,637 workers in 2018. Meanwhile, Bangladesh exported 5,207 workers in 2021, 3,608 workers and 50,292 workers to Qatar.
Bangladeshi workers received a record $22,070.87 million as remittance during 2021 as against $21,752.27 million in 2020, a 1.46% rise in the just concluded year, according to the statistics of BMET.
Bangladesh has become the 8th largest remittance-receiving country and the 6th largest migrant-sending country in the world, according to the World Migration Report 2022.
The pandemic situation has improved in Asia after successful vaccination in major labour-importing countries. The economies of Gulf countries and Southeast Asian countries are also on the right track after the pandemic hits the global economies, said a leader of BAIRA.