Rise in unemployed graduates is worrying

DESPITE massive expenditure on public and private sector development, the rise in number of unemployment is a worrying matter. More significantly, unemployment among university graduates has increased by one percent along with fall in new job creation by one lakh in the country in the fiscal year 2016-2017 is highly sensitive. A report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics made the disclosure. In our view the situation must be reversed to make sure graduates entering the job markets are getting jobs.

The rate of unemployment among youths who graduated from universities, aged between 15 and 29 years, rose to 11.2 per cent from 10.2 per cent a year ago according to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2016-2017 of the BBS. The same survey for 2015-2016 estimated 2.65 lakh or 10.2 per cent youths with tertiary level education were unemployed in the country.

Though the national average unemployment rate remains stable at 4.2 per cent, the number of new job creation in the country has declined to 13 lakhs from 14 lakhs in the previous year. In addition, some 10 lakhs people went abroad for jobs in the year while 14 lakhs entered into paid jobs market from previous unpaid employment. The number of unpaid family helpers is now 72 lakh in the country. The number of jobless people has also increased to 27 lakh in the year from that of 26 lakhs a year ago,

According to International Labour Organisation, those who work at least one hour a week are not unemployed. BBS also follows the criteria. According to the BBS, job creation in formal sector has also increased as the rate of employment in informal sector dropped to 84.6 per cent in the year from 85.4 per cent in previous year.

The fact that over 10 per cent of educated youths don’t have jobs does not bode well for our economy — not to mention the fact that underemployment levels — or those who work only a few hours per week is around 40 per cent, an abysmal number. This is why so many of our citizens are compelled to spend their life savings to go abroad. Increased automation and declining labour markets overseas are nodes of worry for our economy, as these sectors employ a substantial amount of our workers.

The challenge now for Bangladesh is to increase the quality of our education to ensure that those have the technical or knowledge based skills to work in sectors like RMG, where report said over half a million or more employees are citizens of SAARC member states. If we can increase the number of graduates based on skill these jobs will ultimately come to our people to bring big dent to unemployment situation.