Degrees of despair: Why university graduates can’t find work
Bdjobs.com, the country’s largest job portal, says around 35% of National University graduates remain unemployed even at age 30, when the doors of both public and private jobs start closing for good
Highlights
- Graduate unemployment in Bangladesh has sharply risen to 13.5%
- National University graduates face highest joblessness, weak teaching blamed
- One in three unemployed Bangladeshis today holds a degree
- Economy produces 7 lakh graduates yearly, only 3 lakh jobs
- Skills mismatch leaves employers hiring foreign workers over local graduates
- Experts warn Bangladesh's growth model fails to generate employment
Ashiq Ahmed grew up in a small village in Gopalganj, the son of a farmer who dreamed his child would break free from the cycle of hardship through education. Ashiq worked on his father's dream: he studied political science at a National University-affiliated college and graduated in 2018. But his dream journey has an abrupt break. Seven years later after his graduation, he is still jobless.
In Dhaka, Sufia Khatun carries a similar story. The daughter of a maid who was abandoned by her husband, Sufia pushed through all the odds and completed her honours in history from a National University college. Four years have passed since. She, too, remains unemployed, her mother's sacrifices unrewarded.
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Ashiq and Sufia are not exceptions. They represent a generation of graduates for whom a university degree has become a ticket to a waiting room, not a career. Across Bangladesh, a crisis of educated unemployment is fast becoming one of the nation's most pressing social and economic challenges.
Bdjobs.com, the country's largest job portal, says around 35% of National University graduates remain unemployed even at age 30, when the doors of both public and private jobs start closing for good. In comparison, the rates are far lower for private university graduates (14%) and public university graduates (29%) – a stark reflection of the market's poor regard for National University colleges, which produce the majority of the nation's graduates.
The numbers are no less damning in academic studies. A Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) survey last December found nearly 28% of National University graduates were unemployed, with another 16% pushed into self-employment and 13% juggling part-time work and study. Fewer than half – just 42% – had landed salaried jobs.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) offered an even starker picture last week in its latest Labour Force Survey. In a paradox almost unique to Bangladesh, unemployment is lowest among those with no education (1.25%) and highest among those with university degrees (13.54%). One in every three unemployed Bangladeshis today is a graduate. That is nearly 900,000 jobless degree-holders – double the number just eight years ago.
Bangladesh produced more than 7 lakh university graduates in 2022, with nearly two-thirds or 4.5 lakh coming from the National University-affiliated colleges – long criticised for weak teaching standards and student quality
An expanding pipeline with nowhere to go
The trajectory is even more worrying. Graduate unemployment was 4.9% in 2010. By 2016-17, it had risen to 11.2%. It now stands at 13.5% and climbing. In other words, the more graduates cross the academic threshold, the fewer jobs there are waiting for them.
The University Grants Commission warned in 2022 that more than 700,000 graduates are entering the labour market each year. Six in 10 come from National University-affiliated colleges, notorious for weak teaching standards, outdated curricula, and poor links with industry. Yet the higher education pipeline is only expanding – 56 public universities now, up from 50 just three years ago; 116 private universities, up from 101. No one is asking where all these young people will go.
More graduates than jobs
Employers, meanwhile, are blunt. "Under a normal business and investment-friendly environment, the country can absorb at best 300,000 graduates a year," says Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, president of the Bangladesh Employers' Federation. "But this is not the time. Over the last year, there has been hardly any new recruitment. Companies only replaced those who left or died."
Economists echo that concern. "Drivers of employment generation are investments, both local and foreign," says Fahmida Khatun, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). "But Bangladesh's economy, at $450 billion, is too small to absorb this massive youth force."
The real danger, she warns, lies in the mismatch between what universities produce and what employers need. "Bangladesh is heading into a dangerous mismatch: education divorced from employment. The question is no longer whether we have enough graduates, but whether our universities can produce the kind of human capital the economy desperately needs."
7 lakh graduates in 2022, 62% from one university
Bangladesh produced more than 7 lakh university graduates in 2022, with nearly two-thirds or 4.5 lakh coming from the National University-affiliated colleges – long criticised for weak teaching standards and student quality.
The UGC's annual report shows the National University alone accounted for 61.7% of the 701,993 students who graduated that year. The Open University contributed 15.7%, while 50 public universities contributed 12.3%, and over 100 private universities contributed 10.3%.
The figure is likely closer to 7.5 lakh now as the UGC has yet to release reports for 2023 and 2024. "Our 2023 report is now in the press, and we have already sought information for 2024, which will take a year to publish," a UGC official told The Business Standard.
Growth without jobs
Bangladesh's demographic profile should be its biggest strength. The average age of the population is just 26-27 years, prime working age, says Fahmida of CPD. But while the economy has grown, it has failed to generate enough jobs.
Investment trends explain part of the puzzle. As a share of GDP, gross investment fell to 29.38% in FY25 from 30.70% in FY24, driven by a decline in private investment. Agriculture, which now contributes less than 11% to GDP, still employs 45% of the workforce – signs of underemployment and disguised employment.
Meanwhile, the industrial sector accounts for 37.44% of GDP but employs only 17.38% of the population. While the services sector accounted for 51.62% of GDP, it employed less than 38% of the workforce.
"There is a paradox," says Fahmida. "We cannot meet job market demand because of a serious skills mismatch. That's why local employers continue to hire skilled manpower from abroad."
Subjects having highest and lowest % of unemployed graduates
About 31% of BA (Pass) graduates remain unemployed, the highest among all disciplines, followed by political science (23%), library management (20.57%), Bangla (18.49%), and Islamic history and culture (17.45%).
In contrast, unemployment is almost negligible among certain subjects: just 0.17% for English graduates, 0.35% for economics and accounting, 0.69% for sociology, and 0.72% for finance and banking.
A model out of sync
The crisis is not just about universities but about the country's development model itself, argue experts.
"It [unemployment] is a matter of grave concern," says Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and former adviser to a caretaker government. "The development model of the last 10-15 years was not employment-friendly. And the education system is not aligned with job market demand."
Unless Bangladesh can recalibrate both its growth strategy and higher education system, the graduate unemployment problem risks becoming a long-term drag on prosperity.
