Saudi Arabia Suggests Bangladesh Workers Know Saudi Culture
April 21, 2008
DHAKA, April 9 Asia Pulse - Saudi Deputy Minister for Labour Ahmed Abdulraham Al Mansour Tuesday urged the authorities in Bangladesh to send workers with adequate knowledge about Saudi culture, lack of which often embarrasses both the sides.
He also called for sending skilled workers in keeping with the changed labour market that prefers skilled hands, holding out offer of assistance for skill training.
“We can assist Bangladesh in developing skilled manpower, if necessary,” he told reporters after the Saudi-Bangladesh Joint Economic Commission (JEC) meeting in the NEC conference room.
Ahmed led the Saudi delegation while ERD secretary Aminul Islam Bhuiyan headed the host team to the two-day 9th JEC meeting that concluded Tuesday.
Welcoming skilled workers from Bangladesh, the Saudi Junior Minister said workers need to know the Saudi culture, social norms and values as well as the labour laws.
Lack of knowledge about the rules and regulation creates problem, he said, adding that outbound workers should also ensure that they have legally proper appointment letter and they should know their job in Saudi Arabia.
He noted that the Saudi labour market has changed a lot by now and authorities now prefer importing skilled workers.
Replying to a question, he said he would not bring sweeping charges against all the recruiting agencies that recruit workers to Saudi Arabia and allegedly cheat workers from Bangladesh.
He, however, suggested ensuring transparency of the local recruiting agencies.
The ERD secretary, Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, said the JEC had a fruitful meeting on bilateral issues, including manpower export, trade and commerce, economic cooperation and tourism. Labour issues dominated the talk.
During the meeting, the Saudi delegation members said that the Saudi government was examining the number of workers from different countries as against their respective quotas.
They also made it clear that it was not an isolated measure against Bangladesh.
The team further assured that the recent unrest by the Bangladeshi workers in Saudi Arabia would not be a threat for sending Bangladesh workers to his country.
Manpower brokers to be brought under legal framework
April 21, 2008
The government is mulling bringing manpower brokers under a legal framework and devise a mechanism for recruiting agencies to realise service charges from oversees job seekers based on their wages to reduce cost of going abroad for employment.
Brokers in manpower exporting and importing countries gobble up a substantial share of the money that the job seekers spend for overseas employment. The evil practice eventually raises the cost of migration, which in many cases the workers cannot retrieve from their wages during the job period.
This happens mainly in cases of unskilled workers, who constitute 50 to 60 percent of the migrant workforce, worsening their socio-economic condition.
“There are instructions from the higher authorities to devise an effective mechanism so that overseas job seekers are not forced to make undue payments,” said a high official of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.
Previous experience showed that the government’s fixation of cost for sending workers abroad did not work. For instance, cost of sending workers to Malaysia was fixed at Tk 84,000 each but each of the around four lakh workers spent Tk 2 lakh to Tk 2.5 lakh.
“So, we asked Baira (Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies) representatives to give their opinions on how recruiting agencies can reduce cost of labour migration,” the official told this correspondent.
Against this backdrop, experts have come up with ideas like recruiting agencies’ authorising middlemen and making them accountable in cases of cheating of job seekers, and even opening BMET (Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training) offices at upazila level.
The ministry official said one idea to cut high migration cost is that the recruiting agencies will realise service charges from aspirant migrants on the basis of their wages. If the agencies can arrange jobs with high wages, they will get high amounts.
“Such a mechanism may encourage recruiting agencies to find out better paid jobs,” he said.
The government has already formed a committee for legal reforms in immigration sector, and will take decisions based on opinions of Baira representatives so that these are complied with properly, the official mentioned.
Former executive committee member of Baira Abdul Alim said if service charges based on wages are introduced, recruiting agencies will advertise in newspapers on overseas jobs specifying required qualifications, wages and service charges. Since job seekers will then get all the information easily, middlemen will have no scope to tempt and cheat them.
Alim also said the government should allow recruiting agencies to set up offices and invest money to search for jobs in manpower importing countries. Most of the agencies now take money abroad through hundi to search for job demands.
Agency offices abroad can even help curb middlemen’s activities in the manpower receiving countries, Alim thought.
Baira’s former secretary general Ghulam Mustafa emphasised opening BMET offices in upazilas. Whenever recruiting agencies get information about job demands, they will submit those to the BMET for immediate passing on to all its offices across the country, he said.
“Under this system, overseas jobseekers will go to their nearest BMET offices, instead of going to middlemen, to know about the jobs and will then contact recruiting agency offices,” Mustafa said. This will greatly reduce middlemen’s dominance and cheating of job seekers, he felt.
Authorising the middlemen to operate as representatives of recruiting agencies may be helpful to some extent but it may also be seriously abused, he said. To abolish middlemen system in labour receiving countries, Bangladesh should sign bilateral agreements with those countries, he suggested.
Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) Coordinator Prof Dr CR Abrar however said the earlier rules that recruiting agencies should publish job demands in newspapers did not work. Rather, middlemen continued to exploit jobseekers in various ways.
He said a better option to be relieved of the middlemen is hiring jobseekers from the BMET database, which should be properly maintained.
“Now, the unauthorised middlemen are out of control. Once they are recognised and provided identity cards, they can be caught in cases of fraudulent practices,” Dr Abrar said.
The government should also allow recruiting agencies to invest money abroad for market research, he suggested.
Saudis ban Bangladeshi workers in two sectors
April 4, 2008
Riyadh: Saudi Labour Minister Dr Gazi Al Gosaibi has clarified that the decision to stop hiring of Bangladeshi workers was in the housing and agricultural sectors.
“This decision was taken in view of the fact that the quota fixed for Bangladeshi workers in the kingdom was over,” Gosaibi said.
“Their hiring would be restricted to medical and engineering fields. However, there will be an exception for the jobs in the maintenance and cleaning sectors with the condition that their percentage in all the sectors should not exceed 20 per cent,” he told reporters here on Sunday. Read more
Bangladesh in Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008
April 4, 2008
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‘The Global Competitiveness Report’ is a publication of World Economic Forum.
‘The Global Competitiveness Report has evolved over the last 3 decades into world most comprehensive and respected assessment of countries competitiveness, offering insight into the policies, institutions and factors driving productivity & then, enabling sustained economic growth and long term prosperity’.
‘Produced in collaboration with leading academicians and global network of research institutions the Global Competitiveness Report provides users with competitiveness indicators for a large numbers of industrialized and developing economies’.
This year edition features a record 131 economies, accounting for more than 98% of the world GDP.
Besides hard data from the leading institutional source, indicators include results of the executive opinion surveyed by the World Economic Forum annually. The survey covered perception of several thousand business leaders on topics related to national competitiveness.
The parameters which were considered in Basic Requirements are institutions, infrastructures, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education; in Efficiency Enhancers higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size and in Innovation and Business sophistication are business sophistication and innovation
Global Competitiveness ranking:
Seven best in the world:
|
|
Rank |
Score |
|
USA |
1 |
5.67 |
|
Switzerland |
2 |
5.62 |
|
Denmark |
3 |
5.55 |
|
Sweden |
4 |
5.54 |
|
Germany |
5 |
5.51 |
|
Finland |
6 |
5.49 |
|
Singapore |
7 |
5.45 |
Asia’s best:
|
Singapore |
7 |
5.45 |
|
Japan |
8 |
5.43 |
|
Korea |
11 |
5.40 |
|
Taiwan |
14 |
5.25 |
|
Malaysia |
21 |
5.10 |
|
China |
34 |
4.57 |
|
Saudi Arabia |
35 |
4.55 |
Standing of the SAARC countries:
|
India |
48 |
4.33 |
|
Sri Lanka |
70 |
3.99 |
|
Pakistan |
92 |
3.77 |
|
Bangladesh |
107 |
3.55 |
|
Nepal |
114 |
3.38 |
Performance of Bangladesh:
Bangladesh ranked 107th out of 131 countries in 2007-2008. It was 92nd position out of 122 countries in 2006-2007.
The performance of Bangladesh in different parameters are as follows:
|
Basic requirements |
|
111 |
|
1st pillar |
Institution |
126 |
|
2nd pillar |
Infrastructure |
120 |
|
3rd pillar |
Macroeconomic stability |
87 |
|
4th pillar |
Heath & primary education |
105 |
|
Efficiency enhancers |
|
91 |
|
5th pillar |
Higher education & training |
126 |
|
6th pillar |
Goods market efficiency |
93 |
|
7th pillar |
Labor market efficiency |
76 |
|
8th pillar |
Financial sophistication |
75 |
|
9th pllar |
Technological readiness |
125 |
|
10th pillar |
Market size |
75 |
|
Innovation and sophistication |
|
111 |
|
11th pillar |
Business sophistication |
102 |
|
12th pillar |
Innovation |
117 |
Bangladesh’s manpower export reduces as international demands drop
April 4, 2008
High cost of migration coupled with reduction of international demands are thwarting the promotion of manpower export of Bangladesh.
The country’s manpower export to traditional markets like the Middle East countries is declining and an unhealthy competition among the recruiting agencies is increasing the cost of migration, The Daily Star reported Sunday. Read more
Bangladesh Labor Market.
April 4, 2008
The labor force in 1998 was estimated at approximately 64 million workers. In 1996, approximately 11% of the civilian labor force was employed in the industrial sector. Agriculture accounted for 63% of workers, and service employees were 26% of the labor force. Statistics are unreliable because of a large, informal, unreported market. The unemployment rate in 2001 was estimated at 35%.
Although 1.8 million out of the five million workers in the formal sector of the economy were unionized, this represented only a small fraction of the economically active population. Most unions are affiliated with political parties. Strikes are a common form of workers protest. There are industrial tribunals to settle labor disputes. The government can impose labor settlements through arbitration, as well as by declaring a strike illegal. Unions have become progressively more aggressive in asserting themselves, especially on the political scene.
Public sector workers’ wages are set by the National Pay and Wages Commission and may not be disputed. In the private sector, wages are set by industry, and collective bargaining rarely occurs due to high unemployment and workers’ concerns over job security. The legal workweek is 48 hours, with one day off mandated. This law is rarely enforced, especially in the garment industry. Children under the age of 14 are prohibited by law to work in factories but may work (under restricted hours) in other industries. However, such restrictions are rarely enforced and children work in every sector of the economy. In 2002, the government estimated that 6.6 million children between the ages of five and 14 years were engaged in all types of employment activities, many that were harmful to their well-being.
Bangladesh has an agrarian economy with 32% of GDP coming from the Agriculture Sector. In recent years, the country is doing much better in some sectors, but the proper balance is required for achieving positive goals. Bangladesh has recently achieved significant growth of GDP. But, the problem also remains that the growth rate of GDP is dominated by agriculture while manufacturing is weak. Lack of democratic practice and corruption works as obstacles to achieving government targets. If the government is not successful in creating a favorable investment climate and investment does not match the savings rate, then the ability to achieve the targeted level of GDP growth will remain in doubt. To attract investment, the government should readjust the rate of interest and should create a political atmosphere that will be favorable for domestic as well as foreign investment. Policies that promote remittances would also be helpful to stabilize economy. With high population growth continuing to expand the economically active population and the simultaneous employment cuts in privatized industries, the labour market situation in Bangladesh is fragile. Relatively high rates of inflation combined with high levels of unemployment may lower real wages. To overcome these problems, the government should create job opportunities and should take initiatives to run industries. Within the policy of privatization, the government may take measures towards creating jobs and managing industries. Since the world economy is volatile, Bangladesh faces both risks and opportunities. Unless we can devise far-sighted strategies, we risk remaining marginalized in the increasing global flow of commodities, capital, information and technology.