‘Unemployed graduates outnumber ones with no degree’

The rate of unemployment is high among graduated youths than the ones with no graduation degree, said AKM Fahim Mashroor, CEO of bdjobs.com.

"If you do a survey, you would find that the youths with educational qualification less than SSC got more jobs than those with a graduation degree," he said.

All the recent surveys of the World Bank and Bangladesh Institution of Development Studies will show the same result, he said.

He was speaking at a conference on youth community and SDG organised by the Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh at the convention hall of the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh.

The number of educated but unemployed people is highest in Bangladesh, Mashroor added.

"Our inability to bring the youth into economic activity is the main cause for involvement of youth with drug or extremism," he added.

He said it is alarming that most of the students now are preferring government jobs rather than private ones.

"The youth of our society don't want to join the main stream jobs of the economy. They only want to join the privileged segment, which happens to be government jobs sector."

The job seekers consider government jobs as the secured and easy options as there are other types of income opportunities also, he added.

"So, the problem is with the mindset of the youth," said Mashroor, who is also a former president of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services.