Job seekers turn to backwaters

Africa and the pacific regions have become new destinations for Bangladeshis to get overseas employment. They are now getting jobs in many far-flung areas in those regions.

The ministry of expatriate welfare and overseas employment sources said, "Several hundred Bangladeshis recently got job in these countries where any one hardly got employment earlier".

The countries are: Tonga of Pacific, Madagascar, Namibia and Botswana.

The sources informed that 35 Bangladeshis got job in Tonga, while 1200 employed in Madagascar on the month of February-March this year. On the other hand, 30 Bangladeshi engineers have been recruited in Botswana and 50 workers in Namibia.

"These countries are showing interest to recruit people from Bangladesh because they need a lot of workers," said, Daliluddin Mondol, secretary in-charge of the expatriate welfare ministry.

He also added, " The expatriate ministry, Bangladesh missions abroad and all other related government agencies are trying their best to increase overseas employment of our people".

When the secretary was asked about the possibility of resuming manpower export to Malaysia and South Korea, two major destinations of Bangladeshi workers, he has given a negative impression.

For last few years, the employment of a large- scale Bangladeshi workers remained suspended in these countries.

The sources said, prospect of employment of Bangladeshi workers in Africa and pacific regions are very bright. In reference to the demand of the workers, a high official of the ministry said, "at this moment around 3,000 Bangladeshis can be employed in Madagascar alone".

"We are giving permission to the recruiting agents very consciously, so that they cannot collect money from the people giving false information", the source said.

The over all manpower export from the country however grew by 27.24 per cent in the first four months of this year over the corresponding period.

According to sources, a total of 75269 persons went abroad for job till April this year, while the number was 59157 at the same time last year.

On the other hand, in the current month till May 24, a total of 13,716 Bangladeshis left the country for job purposes. The remittance earning also shows a significant growth of 15.86 per cent this year. Within the first four months, Tk 6192.26 crore came to the country comparing to the same period last year when Tk 5344.53 crore was earned.

The state minister for expatriate welfare, Major (rtd) Mohammad Quamrul Islam is now in a market exploration visit to Saudi Arabia, where there is an opportunity to employ a lot of Bangladeshi nurses. He met a number of ministers and high officials of the Kingdom to increase the manpower export from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia.

According to a received message, the minister got positive response from Saudi authority in order to increase manpower export to Saudi Arabia, where more than one million Bangladeshis are still working.