Women workers are declining in cities: Study
Business Report :
Experts at a discussion on Thursday said that urban labour forces saw fewer women working as industry employees — mainly in manufacturing, construction and utility sectors.
They were speaking at a technical dialogue on National Employment Policy and Labour Market Employment Challenges in Bangladesh jointly organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Ministry of Labour, Employment (MoLE) and the Research and Policy Integration for Development (Rapid).
Mohammad Abdur Razzaque, chairman of Rapid, presented the keynote at the event.
He said that according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data, there were 19.6 million women workers in 2017, but the figure declined to 17.3 million in 2022.
This means that in 2017, women comprised 31% of the total urban workforce, but in 2022 this came down to 23.58%.
The reasons behind the decline were that the readymade garment (RMG) industry was adopting new machinery and new technologies.
“You cannot ignore new technology adoption trends, otherwise they (factory owners) will lose their competitiveness”, he added
Moreover, another general perception is that women are not used to adapting to technology, while there is a social stigma that women are not able to do this, he added.
He also said that while the sectors saw about double digit growth, its employments’ contribution fell drastically.
In 2022, industry employment is about 12.05 million, while it was 12.4 million in 2017, according to the BBS data. Razzaque further explained that industrial sector average growth was average 9% in the last five years when BBS conducted this survey, it was right after the Covid-19 outbreak, when people were moved to villages.
Replying to another question, the Rapid chairman said that in the last five years, 10 million people were integrated in the labour force, but against this figure, how many jobs were actually created was rather difficult to identify. Agricultural sector employment increased a little bit, while the share in the services sector remained the same, and manufacturing sector employment fell down.
On a broader scale, most of them are in jobs, but they have scope to do more productive work, he observed.
Women employment in agriculture is a positive growth, but those women are mainly unpaid family workers, he added.
In 2022, agriculture sector employment was about 32.2 million, which was 24.7 million in 2017, according to the BBS data.
“We should improve our labour standards. If we fail to improve that, it may remain challenging to negotiate with any country to get any facility after LDC graduation,” Razzaque further commented.
State Minister for Labour and Employment Begum Monnujan Sufian said that Bangladesh was on the road to LDC graduation in 2026 and the successful transition into a middle-income country needs to include a review of the local labour market and employment policies to foster job creation and macroeconomic growth; including investment promotion, diversification, increased labour productivity and formalization of employment.
“Bangladesh does indeed sit on untapped potential. As mentioned, over 2 million youth enter the labour force each year, and we must improve on harnessing this demographic dividend in the next 12-15 years,” she added.
