Bangladesh 2nd biggest source of online workers in Asia: ADB

Bangladesh is the second biggest source of online workers in Asia followed by India, said an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report released yesterday. 

The Asian Economic Integration (ACI) report 2021 said India, Bangladesh and Pakistan account for 52 per cent of the global online workforce. The Philippines is at sixth.

The majority of online jobs are related to software development, technology and creative and multimedia, said the report.

According to the ACI, from 2017 to 2020, the share of workers in creative and multimedia has increased by 34 per cent in Bangladesh and by 40 per cent in Indonesia.

To date, it accounts for around 59 per cent of Bangladesh's online workforce and 74 per cent of Indonesia's.

In the Philippines, such online workers in creative and multimedia share the bulk of online employment (47 per cent) while its share is 31 per cent in Pakistan.

Around 25 per cent of online workers in the Philippines are into clerical and data services while such workers account for fewer than 10 per cent in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Only around 14 per cent of Filipino online workers do tasks that are related to software development and technology, much lower compared with the proportion of such workers in India (59 per cent), Pakistan (45 per cent) and even Vietnam (52 per cent).

In Asia, the creative industry is likely to flourish, as countries boast of a big pool of young, creative and technology savvy people.