Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury on Sunday told Parliament that nearly 500,000 Bangladeshi workers have so far been employed abroad after the present government assumed power in February last.
“Since the current government came to power, a total of 496,150 workers have been employed in different countries from February 17, 2026 to November 9, 2026,” he said.
Out of the total, 340,533 are skilled and semi-skilled workers, the minister said in his scripted answer to a question from treasury bench lawmaker Sarwar Jamal Nizam (Chittagong-13).
Earlier, the day’s sitting began at 4:20pm with Deputy Speaker Barrister Kayser Kamal in the chair.
In reply to another question from the same lawmaker, the minister said Malaysia was one of the largest labour markets for Bangladeshi workers and the market, which had remained closed for a long time, had already reopened following the government's diplomatic efforts.
“Of the workers who could not go to Malaysia earlier, 1,545 have so far been sent there. The process of sending workers to Malaysia through the Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) completely free of cost has also begun,” he said.
Ariful said the government had received job demands for 568 workers, but a total of 4,029 aspiring migrant workers submitted applications (Against a demand for 120 workers), of whom 300 were initially selected through a lottery.
Replying to a third question from Nizam, he said his ministry had taken various plans and initiatives to expand overseas employment opportunities for Bangladeshi workers.
The minister said workers were being sent from Bangladesh to various countries, including Macedonia, Mauritius and Italy in Europe, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Singapore, Portugal, Seychelles, Serbia, Fiji and Romania.
The government would also take initiatives to appoint country-specific local lobbyists or consultants, as necessary, based on recommendations from Bangladesh missions abroad to expand employment opportunities, he said.
Ariful said Qatar was one of Bangladesh's major labour markets. The 7th meeting of the Joint Committee between Bangladesh and Qatar was held in Dhaka on May 18, 2026.
At the meeting, Qatar's labour minister expressed interest in recruiting Bangladeshi workers in various trades, including electrical work, plumbing, air-conditioning technology and welding.
“I hope it will be possible to send a larger number of workers to the country very soon,” Ariful said.
Regarding Japan, he said technical interns were being sent there completely free of cost under a memorandum of understanding, with the assistance of the International Manpower Development Organization (IM Japan).
Agreements had also been signed with seven other Japanese companies to facilitate the recruitment of Bangladeshi workers, the minister added.
He said workers were being regularly sent to Brunei, Jordan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and several other countries at low or no cost through BOESL.
Ariful said the ministry had also taken initiatives, in line with the government's election manifesto and its action plan, to sign MoUs, Memorandums of Cooperation (MoCs) and other agreements with new destination countries.
Emphasising the importance of training to send more workers abroad, he said a project titled “Providing Driving Training for Employment at Home and Abroad” was underway to train 100,000 drivers.
He said a Foreign Language and Skills Centre had been launched at the Dhaka Technical Teachers Training Institute (DTTI) under the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), considering the importance of teaching aspiring migrant workers the languages of their destination countries.
Training programmes in Japanese, Korean, English, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Arabic, Italian and German, among other languages, have already been introduced through the recruitment of trainers, said the minister.
