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Bangladeshis finding jobs abroad fall 18.5 percent

Thursday, 07 October 2010 02:13

Source: ArabNews.com
By: REUTERS

The number of Bangladeshis finding jobs abroad, the second biggest source of foreign income after ready-made garments, fell 18.50 percent in the first nine months of 2010 to nearly 292,000, a senior official said on Tuesday.

More than 358,000 Bangladeshis secured foreign jobs during the same period last year, said the official from the state-run Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training.

More than 6 million Bangladeshis work abroad, mostly in the Middle East and Europe.

Reazul Islam, senior vice president of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies, said that after the global recession, Bangladesh lost jobs to competitors in some traditional job markets like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia.

The number of Bangladeshis holding jobs in the United Arab Emirates, which has in the past employed more than half of all overseas Bangladeshi workers, is falling sharply, he said.

Malaysia, another major outlet, employed only 117 Bangladeshi workers in September. Singapore, however, maintained its steady recruitment of Bangladeshis, employing a total of 3,358 workers in September this year.

Expatriate Bangladeshi incomes sent back home totalled $10.97 billion in the 2009/10 fiscal year that ended in June, 13 percent higher than the previous year, the central bank said.

It expects remittances in the current fiscal year to reach $14 billion, helped by the gradual recovery of the global economy.

Officials said strong remittances helped offset the trade shortfall and kept the overall balance of payments in surplus.

Expatriate incomes are the country’s second-biggest source of foreign income after ready-made garments, which earned more than $12 billion in the 2009/10 fiscal year.