Joblessness a threat to social stability: MCCI

The growing rate of unemployment is posing a serious threat to social stability and leading to a slide in the law and order situation, said a leading chamber yesterday.
Job creation is crucial to maintaining a stable society, but the issue of employment remained unheard to many for years as adequate job fields were not created, said Amjad Khan Chowdhury, president of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI).
“The major cause for unemployment and under-employment is the poor standard of education. The educational institutes hardly deliver quality education to the learners,” Chowdhury said at a press conference at the MCCI office.
The chamber president said they will organise a seminar on "Job creation in Bangladesh: an effective means to poverty reduction" at the chamber building tomorrow.
He said job creation became difficult in Bangladesh also because of inadequate supply of gas and power to the industrial units as many such units cannot go into production and many more are running half-heartedly.
“Jobs, jobs and jobs dominate the US presidential elections currently in progress. In circumstances prevalent in Bangladesh, creating jobs should be treated with more gusto but unfortunately, the whole objective is lost in the game of power politics,” Chowdhury said.
“People take a lot of personal risks to venture out to a developed country just to get employed somehow,” he said.
“We have an existing unemployment as well as underemployment rate of nearly 25 percent to 30 percent as estimated and nearly two million workers join the labour force every successive year, thus adding to the challenge.”