Skills dearth to dent development: study
Bangladesh already faces a shortage in the supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers in every sector and the situation could worsen in the coming decade if proper measures are not taken, denting the country's development aspirations, says a new study.
“Labour Market and Skill Gap in Bangladesh”, a report on the study, showed that the labour supply is projected at 64.8 million in 2016 and 82.9 million in 2025, a 78 percent increase in a decade.
Meanwhile, labour demand will increase from 63.5 million to 88.7 million, it said, adding that from 2021, demand would exceed supply.
The study was unveiled at a programme at the finance ministry in Bangladesh Secretariat yesterday.
The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) carried out the study on behalf of the ministry's Skills for Employment Investment Program.
BIDS Director General KAS Murshid presented the highlights in a presentation.
On skills gap, he said, “The scale of the problem is enormous and set to get even bigger!”
He said innovative supply-side approaches are needed as traditional approaches would not deliver. “The skills gap can even hold up development,” he said.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith praised the findings, saying it would be useful in boosting development.
He said Bangladesh's development has reached a stage that skills development and training have become important tools.
“Trainings are important not only for export competitiveness but also for domestic necessity,” he said.
The report touched upon recent changes in the labour market.
It said the share of illiterate labour force has halved in recent years: it was only 21 percent in 2013 compared to 40 percent in 2006.
Meanwhile, that with higher secondary education or above also doubled from 8.5 percent in 2006 to 18.9 percent in 2013. That with technical or vocational training has also gone up.
In 2013, about 5.4 percent of the labour force or 5.74 lakh people had technical or vocational training against 0.14 percent or 80,000 in 2010.
The study was carried out in 10 subsectors: agro-processing, garment, textile, construction, hospitality and tourism, leather, light engineering, ICT, shipbuilding and healthcare.
The construction, garment and textile and agro-processing sectors employ a significant share of workers, accounting for 3.8 percent, 8.4 percent and 2.5 percent of all employment respectively.
The biggest skills gap is now in the agro-food sector followed by the garment and textile sectors.
The skills gap is also high or 40 percent in the IT sector as the demand is mainly for skilled and semi-skilled labour, said the report.
The report said there was a surplus in the supply of doctors in the health sector while nurses were short in supply. The report showed that only 10.4 percent of workers in the subsectors received training whereas the rest received none.
The report said most of the skills acquisition now took place through on-the-job training rather than the formal process.
A few large factories have partial training facilities for their own staff while others have to depend on highly inadequate public facilities, it said.
Most are unwilling to send them for training as they may be lost to higher bidders, according to the report.
Data on the share of trained workers reveal that healthcare, IT and hospitality are dependent on them, the shares ranging from 25 to 40 percent.
The share of trained female workers is high in healthcare and IT.
Women's share of employment in the garment sector is high. But women's share among trained workers is much lower than that of their male counterparts.
“Therefore, it is desirable that a predominantly larger share of the projected training in these sectors should be targeted to women.”
“If such training is implemented, female workers will experience upward mobility with higher productivity and higher wage, which will encourage growth of women's labour force participation rate,” he said.
Abul Kalam Azad, chief coordinator for Sustainable Development Goals at the Prime Minister's Office, emphasised working on skills development in sectors China was moving away from. Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, senior secretary of the finance division, was also present.
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