Shawdesh desk:

The government is targeting to export one million workers by the next six months.

Reopening of the Malaysian labour market, potential manpower export agreements with a few more countries and continuation of manpower exports to some other destinations have brought life to the country’s manpower export sector, which has been hit hard by job cuts and the return of a significant number of migrant workers during the pandemic.

Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad has expressed his optimism in boosting the manpower export.

Despite all odds caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Bangladesh has sent 617,209 workers overseas and received a record $22 billion in remittance last year.

“If this trend continues, we will be able to send 9 to 10 lakh workers by June. And if the door to Malaysia is fully opened, I hope it will rise even further,” he told the Daily Sun.

A spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in April-May and a fall in remittance inflow in the later half of 2021 added to the crisis the sector has already been facing.

In November last year, the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) issued clearance for sending 102,863 workers abroad. Over 125,000 workers went abroad alone in December.

Earlier in March 2017, more than one lakh workers went abroad. A total of 10,08,525 workers migrated to different countries in that year, which was a record for the sector.    According to BMET, 35,732 workers went abroad in January 2021, 49,510 in February and 61,653 workers migrated in March. Manpower export nosedived from April due to a deteriorated corona situation.

Some 34,145 workers went abroad in April 2021, 14,200 in May, 45,567 in June, 12,380 in July and 19,604 in August. Manpower export has started to gain pace  since September last year. Some 42,000 workers migrated in September and 65,233 people went abroad in October last year.

BMET Director-General Shahidul Alam said, “Our target was to send 600,000 workers abroad in 2021. Despite the tough situation, we have reached that mark. Now we need to create new markets to retain this trend.”

In 2021, the expatriates sent a record $22,070.87 million or Tk 189,367 crore to the country.

Remittance inflow continued to decrease over the last several months except for a slight upward trend in December last year as Bangladesh received remittance of $1.73 billion in September, $1.65 billion in October, $1.55 billion in November and $1.63 billion in December.

Assessing the reasons behind the fall in remittance inflow, the government has raised the cash incentive on remittance to 2.5 per cent from 2.0 per cent to encourage expatriates to send money through official channels.

Despite sending a huge amount of remittance, expatriates have suffered from job cuts, lockdown and mandatory quarantine in different countries. Apart from these, they, along with outbound workers, struggled a lot due to the sudden increase in plane fares on certain routes, especially the Bangladesh-Middle East route.

Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) chair Dr Tasneem Siddiqui thinks that Bangladesh failed to use the opportunity of sending more workers abroad.

“A market for skilled workers was created in various sectors including health, which could not be taken advantage of. In 2021, almost all the workers went through ‘free visa’ or visas sent by their relatives. Concerned people couldn’t prove their efficiency by bringing enough visas,” she said.

Yet RMMRU believes that Bangladesh’s manpower sector has every reason to dream big. If this trend continues, RMMRU expects that labour migration will increase by 1.5 times in 2022.

While talking about creating new labour markets, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Dr Ahmed Munirus Saleheen said, “The minister recently signed a letter of intent with Greece. Agreements to send workers to Albania, Malta and Bosnia are also waiting to be signed.”

“We have begun sending workers to a number of new labour markets, including Cambodia, Uzbekistan, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Croatia and several other countries of the African continent and Japan, Senegal, Burundi, Seychelles,” he added.