Female workers get job next year

Malaysia is likely to start hiring Bangladeshi female workers under a government-to-government arrangement from January next year, officials of Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur have said.
They however could not immediately confirm the number of the Bangladeshi females who would work there as maids.
“We hope that the Malaysian authorities will initially hire some 1000 to 2000 Bangladeshi female workers,” a high commission official, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Daily Star over the phone yesterday.  
She said the minimum monthly salary of a female worker would be Malaysian Ringgit 900, equivalent to Tk 25,000.
“The recruitment issue has been discussed in two recent bilateral meetings. The recruitment will begin following further discussions by a committee formed jointly by the two countries,” the official added.
In the meetings, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Khondaker Showkat Hossain and Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training Director General Begum Shamsun Nahar led the Bangladeshi side.
The Malaysian side was represented by the secretary general of Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources and the DG of the country's labour department.
The rights of the female workers including fixed work-hours, weekly day offs as well as their accommodation and other facilities would be ensured, Showkat said.
The secretary said the meetings also emphasised on recruiting Bangladeshi male workers for various Malaysian sectors including construction, manufacturing and agriculture.
He claimed to have received “favourbale response” from Malaysia over the matter.
Malaysian employers are now recruiting Bangladeshi male workers only for the country's plantation sector under state arrangements.
Showkat said the recruitment process of more Bangladeshi male workers under the G2G arrangement would be accelerated from next year.
Substantial progress was also achieved in the meetings with Malaysia for sending 12,000 Bangladeshi male workers to the country's Sarawak province, the secretary added.
Currently, around 5, 00,000 Bangladeshis are working at various sectors of the Southeast Asian country, statistics of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry show.