A year has passed since a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Bangladesh and Greece for the latter to recruit Bangladeshi migrant workers. However, Greece is yet to initiate the process.
Irregular migration of Bangladeshis to Italy by sea has almost doubled in a year, shows UN data.
Md Monir, a migrant worker, returned home from the United Arab Emirates with severe physical pain in June 2021.
Despite sending well over a million migrants abroad last year, Bangladesh is unlikely to get the desired remittance from them as almost four out of five of them were less skilled.
The country’s per capita external debt currently stands at more than double from what was seven years ago as both public and private sector foreign loans have seen an increase by this time.
The private sector’s foreign debt decreased by 4.3 per cent, or more than $1 billion, in the second quarter of the current fiscal year following Bangladesh Bank’s strict measures to control imports.
As Bangladesh sends tens of thousands of migrant workers abroad each year, scores return home prematurely after suffering various injuries or illnesses in the host countries
Bangladesh sent the highest number of migrant workers in its history in 2022 thanks to a surge in demand for labourers in the Middle Eastern countries but remittance receipts did not go up proportionately.
Two of the government’s 28 Covid-19 stimulus packages saw a fresh injection of Tk 50,000 crore in the ongoing financial year, but only 4 per cent of the fund was disbursed between July and October.
The government has taken a fresh initiative to import rice amid concerns that the domestic procurement target during the ongoing Aman season might not be achieved.
Illegal migration of Bangladeshis to Europe through various Mediterranean routes saw an upsurge this year, raising concerns over the government measures to control it effectively.
After the prime minister’s directive, the Finance Division yesterday asked the authorities to cut government spending on land acquisition, building construction, and machinery purchase.
The government managed to implement 85 per cent of the budget in the last fiscal year despite spending a huge amount as subsidies and incentives, raising questions about the trend of unveiling bigger budgets year after year.
With a $21-billion inward remittance anticipated, Bangladesh is likely to be the seventh highest recipient of remittance globally this year, said the World Bank’s latest report.
In recent years, Bangladeshi expatriates have been registering as members of the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board (WEWB), which enables them to avail of its various welfare services, right from their host countries.
The growing number of people from Bangladesh registering for work overseas indicates that international migration from the country may soon surpass pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent report by the World Bank.
The Asian Development Bank is ready to give over $20 billion to finance Bangladesh’s road and railway projects but raised concerns over the timely implementation of schemes.
Brunei wants to hire Bangladeshi workers only under a government-to-government arrangement to streamline the recruitment process, which has been plagued with irregularities for years.
Returnee migrant workers find it difficult to meet the reintegration loan eligibility set by the Probashi Kallyan Bank.
More than 1,000 Bangladeshi undocumented migrants have enlisted their names at the Bangladesh embassy in Greece for a regularisation process of the Greek government, which is yet to start.
Fiji has emerged as a potential destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers with job opportunities opening up for foreign workers in various sectors including construction, garment and agriculture.
About 16,000 Bangladeshi undocumented migrant workers have so far been regularised in the Maldives under a programme of the Maldivian economic development ministry, according to the Bangladesh High Commission in Malé.
When Julekha Begum left the country in mid-February for a housekeeper job in Saudi Arabia, she promised her seven-year-old son of better days.
As many as 573 migrant workers have gone to Malaysia for employment in August, shows latest data of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training.
Persons belonging to ethnic minority communities in Bangladesh will be getting employment opportunities as “seasonal” workers in South Korea’s agriculture and fisheries sectors.
The Greek government is likely to start regularising undocumented Bangladeshi migrants from mid-September, according to the Bangladesh embassy in Athens.
Romania has emerged as a destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers.
About 34,000 Bangladeshi undocumented migrant workers in the Maldives are in the pipeline for regularisation under an amnesty programme there, according to an estimate of Bangladesh High Commission in Malé.
More than five months have passed since the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Bangladesh and Greece on sending workers to the European country, but the fresh recruitment is yet to begin.
The government yesterday gave recruitment approval to two agencies for sending migrant workers to Malaysia amid allegations of attempts to create a “syndicate of 25 agencies”.
Parul Begum (name changed), a single mother of two, thought she caught a break when she got the offer to work as domestic help in Qatar for a monthly salary of Tk 40,000.
In face of growing pressure on the country’s economy, the government issued strict directives to field-level administration to practise austerity while spending from the budget allocation.
Bangladeshi migrant workers continued to face financial hardship in Lebanon, while many found it difficult to remit money home after making ends meet, due to a prolonged economic crisis there.
Household loss and damage due to natural disasters saw nearly tenfold increase in 2015-2020 compared to that in 2009-2014, says a report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Women spend eightfold more time than men in domestic and care work, said a new survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Remittance inflow fell in 11 months of the current fiscal year mainly because a large number of migrants switched to informal channels like hundi from formal ones for sending money, say experts.
In his latest budget speech, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal emphasised on giving importance to young women’s skill development in professional and technical fields to reduce the country’s gender gap.
The government is going to discard its plan to bring all elderly poor under its social safety net programmes in 100 more upazilas in a bid to prevent the non-poor from misusing the support.
Bangladesh is missing out on a large labour market in Malaysia after Kuala Lumpur stopped taking in any fresh Bangladeshi migrants over irregularities by recruiting agencies in 2018.
Nearly 8 lakh migrant workers went abroad in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, comfortably exceeding the numbers a year ago, a development that bodes well for Bangladesh as it could pave the way for higher remittance earnings.
Kabir Matubbar (not his real name) took an illegal route to Italy from Bangladesh in 2015. The trip included a daring boat journey in the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.
After a severe dip in his earnings in the last two years of the pandemic, Hajrat Ali, a migrant worker in Malaysia, is very happy this time as he sent home an additional amount for his family’s Eid celebration.
The government has established a dedicated centre for migrant workers to reduce the hassles they face while migrating abroad and returning home.
Saudi Arabia has shown interest in investing more than $10 billion in 15 large- and small-scale projects in Bangladesh.
The long-awaited universal pension scheme, one of the pledges of the ruling party’s 2008 election manifesto, is expected to take off within a year.
The struggle of UAE-bound passengers at the Dhaka airport islikely to be over as the Gulf country issued a new travel advisory yesterday withdrawing the mandatory provision for Covid RT-PCR test at the airport within six hours before departure.
With 4.57 lakh workers hired from Bangladesh just last year, Saudi Arabia has been the top destination for Bangladeshi migrants for the past five years.
Expatriates’ welfare ministry has taken up an initiative to revise the costs for international migration, with the aim to make it more “realistic” for the labour force.
Bangladesh’s efforts to send workers to five countries have suffered a blow as those nations adopted restrictive measures before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since her husband migrated to Saudi Arabia as a worker in 2018, Kulsum Begum (not her real name) has been looking after their family back home in Tangail.
Bangladeshis will continue to have the opportunity of applying for employment in Italy through the legal process as seasonal and non-seasonal workers in various sectors.
Migrant workers from Bangladesh may soon be able to go to Greece by legal means as the two countries are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in this regard next month.
It took Habibur Rahman around two weeks of hectic journey to enter Greece from Turkey via an illegal route back in July 2020.
Migrant worker Mashiur Titu saw his monthly income in Lebanon drop by half in two years due to a prolonged economic crisis in the Arab country.
Employers in Malaysia will bear Bangladeshi workers’ migration costs incurred in that country, the expatriates’ welfare ministry said in a press release after the signing of an MoU between the two countries.
Malaysia will soon open its market for Bangladeshi workers, ending a freeze of more than three years, but concerns remain over the syndication of a few agents and the high cost of migration -- major factors behind labour exploitation in the past.
Shahidul Mia (not his real name) spent about Tk 4 lakh to get employed in Saudi Arabia last year.
Although Bangladesh has seen a rise in overseas jobs over the years, in majority of the districts, international labour migration is quite low, largely due to lack of recruiting activities in those regions.