5 lakh likely to migrate for jobs this year

The government expects to send five lakh Bangladeshi workers abroad with employment this year with a target of exceeding the 11 billion US dollar mark of remittance.
"We were able to send 4.75 lakh workers abroad last year and this year we aims to make it over five lakh as well as cross the last year's record remittance earning of $10.72 billion to over $11 billion," said Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan, acting expatriates' welfare secretary.
The overseas employment sector is becoming the engine of the country's economy as the last year remittance stood at Tk 78,000 crore where the government's total budget was around Tk 1 lakh crore, Khan said.
Presently, the remittance earning contributed to 12 percent of the GDP that is six times bigger than official development assistance and 11 times than foreign direct investment, he added.
"Remittance earnings helped us not to be affected by the global economic recession," he said.
"Seventy six lakh Bangladeshi workers are working in around 100 countries, while the number of total government employees across the country is over 10 lakh."
The secretary said holistic approaches, in terms of diplomacy, need to be taken for truly turning the expatriate welfare and overseas employment into a thrust sector.
"Our entire diplomatic approach should be towards searching new destinations for labour export along with sustaining the present oversees labour markets, especially in the Middle Eastern countries that contain about 80 percent of Bangladeshi workers," he said.
Zafar Ahmed Khan said they are trying to create manpower market for Bangladeshi in different countries of Eastern Europe including Poland, Romania, Greece and Russia as well as in Africa including South Africa and Namibia.
The government focuses to send more skilled manpower abroad, as presently among the total overseas workforce, only 3 percent (two lakh) are skilled, 31 percent (21 lakh) semi skilled and 50 percent (33 lakh) unskilled, added Khan.
The government has already decided to establish 30 more technical training centres in different districts and build five marine technology institutes in Munshiganj, Faridpur, Chandpur, Sirajganj and Bagerhat districts.