A different and worrying trend has emerged in the labour market of Bangladesh in the last decade. While employment in the industrial and service sectors usually increases with economic growth, the opposite is being observed in Bangladesh.
Rather, employment in the agricultural sector has increased significantly—which, according to economists, is not in line with the normal development trend.
The issue came up in a session on the second day of the annual economists' conference organized by the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem), at the Brac Center Inn in Mohakhali, the capital, on Saturday (April 18).
The main topic of discussion was the structural changes in the country's labour market.
The discussion was chaired by Max Tuñón, country director of the International Labour Organization. The research was presented by Nazmus Sadat Khan, Senior Economist at the World Bank.
He said that from 2010 to 2017, employment in the agricultural sector decreased with the increase in GDP.
But between 2017 and 2024, the opposite trend is seen - employment in the agricultural sector has increased significantly. On the other hand, employment in the industrial sector has been continuously decreasing, and a similar downward trend has been seen in the service sector.
Najmus Sadat Khan said that this change is contrary to the normal development trend. It is necessary to analyze in depth whether real new employment is being created in the agricultural sector, or whether people are joining low-income informal agricultural work because they cannot find work in other sectors.
He also said that in the recent decade, about 43% of the total new employment has come from the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. A large part of these jobs are low-income and informal.
Researcher Najmus Sadat Khan said that it is not enough to just increase economic growth, but it is important to ensure whether that growth is creating employment or not.
He suggested giving priority to sectors where relatively more job opportunities are created and productivity increases.
On the other hand, research director Mahtab Uddin said that the recent increase in employment in the agricultural sector may be due to the impact of the post-Covid period. Many people who lost their jobs in urban areas have returned to the villages and joined agriculture. As a result, whether this is a permanent change or a temporary situation requires further analysis.
International Labour Organization Country Director Max Tuñón said that jobless growth has now become a major problem around the world. Bangladesh is no exception. He said that it is not possible to address this crisis without creating a skilled workforce. But there is a big gap between the current education system and the needs of the labour market.
He also said that technical and vocational education should be further expanded, focusing on the industrial sector, so that a skilled workforce can be created according to the needs of the labour market.
In another study presented at the conference, Sanem Research Associate Deepa Das said that along with the decline in employment in the manufacturing sector, women's participation is also rapidly declining. In the ready-made garment sector, where women's participation was about half earlier, it has now decreased to about 35%.
He said that social barriers, family pressure, lack of childcare and cultural factors are contributing to the decline in women's participation.
The study also shows that people in urban areas, residents of the eastern region, landless families and relatively highly educated people are more involved in the manufacturing sector. On the other hand, women, people from large families, relatively more wealthy agricultural-dependent families and the less educated population are more involved in the agricultural sector.
In addition, the study mentions that if one member of a family works in the manufacturing sector, the tendency of other members to go to the same sector increases several times.
Economists believe that this change in the labour market is not just a statistic, but also carries important signals for the future economic structure of the country. Therefore, they emphasize the adoption of long-term strategies by analyzing the employment trends of all sectors - industry, services and agriculture - separately in policymaking.