Skilled manpower export remains a far cry

Reza Mahmud :
As Bangladesh is thirsty for more and more remittance, the huge opportunity of exporting skilled manpower is still remaining a far cry.

Stakeholders blamed diplomatic missions abroad for inadequate efforts for searching scopes of exporting skilled labours while there are huge potentials for number of Bangladeshi manpower who got standard skill training.

“Searching vacancies of skilled and trained manpower is a time consuming matter which is not easy for the manpower exporters.

The manpower exporters used to conduct a short tour of the concern countries and collect bulk demands for manpower in the country.

Later they processed for visas and then the BMET issued certificates after scrutinizing those job opportunities.

But it is our diplomats and more specifically our labour wings of the foreign missions who have vast scopes of searching demands for manpower,” Muhammad Abul Bashar, President of Bangladesh Associations of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) told The New Nation.

He said, “Meanwhile, our officials in foreign offices abroad used to stay in the concern country for long, easily can explore demands of skilled manpower.”

Abul Bashar said the same officials of neighboring India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are creating huge job opportunities for their own countries educated people.

He suggested stern surveillance over duties of labour wings in Bangladesh embassies abroad to ensure their accountability.

When contacted, Mohammad Abdul Hye Director (Employment) of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) of the ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment told The New Nation, “The labour wing officials of the Bangladeshi embassies abroad are responsible for finding scopes of exporting adequate manpower in the concern countries. But there are some limitations of their abilities as the manpower in these wings are very little.”

He said, “In most countries, our labour wing officials are used to pass busy time to solve issues of our working manpower there.

As a result, they have a very little time to find out demand for skilled manpower from Bangladesh.”

But the recruiting agencies and the BAIRA leaders did not agreed with this statement.

They said while remittance is most important for our national economy the concern officials of our embassies are ignoring the national interest.

Contacted, Senior Secretary of the Expatriates’ Welfare Ministry, Dr. Ahmed Munirus Saleheen told The New Nation, “It is true that some allegations found on this issue.

But the BAIRA leaders have to focus on specific embassies’ officials who did not associate them. Then we will take necessary measures through the foreign ministry.”

Sources said about 11 lakh workers were exported from Bangladesh to several countries in 2022 while the number is lesser this year. But a most portion of those migrant workers are unskilled labours.

Experts and BAIRA leaders said sending unskilled labour is not adequately helpful for our economy as it earn little remittance against the expectations and potentials.

They said notable number of people are getting adequate training from BMET and BAIRA training institutes but the reflections is very poor in migration sector.