There is absolutely no doubt that remittance earned by Bangladeshis working overseas forms an important part of our overall economy bringing in considerable foreign currency.
However, the sector is not without its own instability as it is not out of the bounds of reality for migrant workers to come back home due to a lack of viable levels of employment in certain countries or even due to arbitrary restrictions put in place by the governments of those countries.
A good case in point would be Maldives’ recent decision to stop issuing visas to Bangladeshi workers due to the country already hosting over 100,000 of our migrant workers, which is a hard cap that the Maldivian government has placed recently. While countries are well within their rights to regulate the amount of migrant workers they can let in, any potential caps on the number of people need to be carefully considered.
Regardless, what this entire affair has, once again, proven is that there is a distinct need to widen the number of potential destinations where our skilled and unskilled workers can migrate. There are many countries which are in dire need of workers of all stripes, countries such as South Korea and Italy have already expressed great interest in increasing the number of Bangladeshis they can take in and the responsibility lies squarely on the government to keep exploring newer avenues to this end.
Manpower is one of Bangladesh’s key resources but also one with great room for improvement. As things stand, the brunt of our overseas labour force is still fairly unskilled, up-skilling them is then the need of the hour.
Expanding the reach of our migrant workforce is ultimately in the best interests of a country that is rapidly establishing itself as a force to be reckoned with in the global arena.