After hundreds of attempts, the labor market of Malaysia has opened, but the deadlock is not leaving behind, where the flow of workers from Bangladesh is supposed to go to there, but this has stuck in this potential labor market.
Only 19,000 Bangladeshi workers went to Malaysia with about 100 recruiting agencies. But in place of Bangladeshi workers, Nepal has already sent around 550,000 workers.
If there is a delay in sending workers from Bangladesh, the labor market may suffer - the concerned have expressed their apprehension.
Manpower exporters said that Bangladesh is not able to take advantage of the massive labor demand in the world's labor market after the corona epidemic. Although the number of workers has increased, it remains solely dependent on Saudi Arabia.
There is no relief in the Middle East market except Saudi Arabia. Even if workers are sent to the UAE, they have to be sent there on a tourist visa. On the other hand, there has been a lot of talk about new markets in Europe, but no real benefits have been found. As a result, some people fear that remittances will be affected.
On the other hand, the Malaysian market opened for Bangladeshis from last August. It was expected that 20-25 thousand workers could be sent every month. There was an opportunity to send 150,000 workers to Malaysia this month. 5 lakh was supposed to go in three years.
But a deliberate slowdown has gripped Malaysia's labor market. There are only a handful of clearances issued from BMET. Agency owners have to scramble to get employment permits for workers who want to go to Malaysia.
Suffering of workers to get exit permit is increasing due to various forms of harassment and extreme indifference. Not only getting the clearance, but also the verification process at the Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia is extremely slow.
Thousands of employment verification files are piled up at the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. Employers in Malaysia are also said to be angry at delays in the verification process of recruitment files in the name of company vetting.
Several members of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting (BAIRA) said that if the speed of sending workers is not increased, there is a danger of losing the Malaysian labor market again. This is because Malaysia's national general election is around the corner. Many people are afraid that if the current government does not continue after the elections, the recruitment of workers will stop.
They demanded to facilitate the issuance of employment permits and exit permits from the Expatriate Welfare Ministry and BMET to Malaysia in order to expand the labor market abroad and speed up the flow of remittances.
According to the statistics of BMET, it can be seen that a large number of workers went abroad in the last 10 months, but they mainly went to three countries in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE.
Out of a total of 9 lakh 47 thousand people, 7 lakh 77 thousand people went to these three countries. 5 lakh 43 thousand 774 people went to Saudi Arabia alone. Then 1 lakh 44 thousand 881 in Oman and 89 thousand 108 in the United Arab Emirates.
19 thousand 755 people went to Qatar in the Middle East, 11 thousand 915 people went to Jordan and 15 thousand 720 people went to Kuwait.
A significant number of 53,695 workers have been sent to Singapore outside the Middle East.
Apart from this, 4 thousand 121 went to South Korea, 4 thousand 658 to Mauritius, 5 thousand 301 to Italy, 1 thousand 896 to Brunei, 379 to Japan, 490 to United Kingdom, 242 to Sudan, 44 to Libya and 52 to Iraq.
@The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on December 3, 2022 and rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan
