Unskilled labour migration increased in 2022: RMMRU

Infographic: TBS

Bangladesh saw an increase in unskilled labour migration at a time when the country sent a record 10.29 lakh workers abroad in 2022, according to a report of the Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit (RMMRU).

The report said if the current flow continues, labour migration would be 81.88% more this year than the previous one.

However, the RMMRU forecasted a 3.17% decrease in the inflow of remittances 2022.

In its yearly report titled "Labour Migration from Bangladesh 2022: Achievements and Challenges", unveiled on Thursday at the National Press Club, Dhaka, it said the number of unskilled labour migrants increased to 78.64% till November this year from 75.24% in the previous year.

The number of skilled workers who travelled to other countries decreased in 2022 compared to the previous year. 

In 2021, the number of skilled workers was 21.33% of total labour migration, which came down to 17.76% in 2022, it said.

However, there was no significant change in the number of semi-skilled workers, which was 3.26% in 2022 and 3.28% in 2021.

The organisation also recommended bringing the incentive for remitters to 10% and restoring the confidence of remitters in the banking sector to increase remittance flow.

Among the four categories of Bangladeshi migrant workers, the migration rate of the workers of the professional category is the lowest.

However, it slightly increased in 2022 (till 21 December) to 0.33% compared to last year's 0.14%.

Bangladesh ranks 6th among migrant-origin countries but is 8th among the top 10 remittance-receiving nations.

The country's major competitors in the overseas job market, including Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Philippines, gain much from the skilled workforce they send abroad, data from multiple sources show.

The average monthly remittance sent by a Bangladeshi expat is $203.33 (Tk17,236), while it is $564.1 for a Filipino worker, which is more than double compared to a Bangladeshi, as per International Organization for Migration.

"Regain confidence on banks, 10% incentives crucial"

According to the report, till November this year, remittance inflow in Bangladesh reached $19.58 billion.

However, the government increased incentives for sending remittances through legal channels from 2% to 2.5% at the beginning of this year.

On the decline of remittance inflow this year despite increasing incentives, Tasneem Siddiqui, founding chair of RMMRU, said, "A large part of the migrant workers sends remittances through the Islami Bank. But this year, some negative news has been published about it and some other banks. As a result, migrant workers' confidence in the banks has declined.

"Migrants feel that if they deposit money in the banks, they may not get it back, or the banks may go bankrupt. As a result, they send remittances through hundi or other channels," she added.

She emphasised promoting the banking sector as a stable sector for migrants through various campaigns to restore their confidence.

"If the incentives under the pension scheme can be increased, the remittance flow will rise. The incentive can be increased little by little up to 10% over several months," she added.

She also suggested removing the errors in the country's taxation policy.

"Baira compromises moral position"

Although there are 1,500 legitimate recruiting agencies in the country, only 75 agencies are currently authorised to send workers to Malaysia.

The RMMRU report mentions that the newly elected executive committee of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) has not responded to this.

"Those who were involved in various activities before the election to allow all the recruiting agencies to send workers to Malaysia left their moral position in this regard after being elected," the report read.

The RMMRU also recommended conducting another post-mortems in some cases of suspected unnatural deaths of migrants in the destination country. Moreover, the organisation calls for speedy activation of the complaint cell which has been set up in the Baira and to ensure legal assistance to migrants and increase the prosecution rate of cases related to human trafficking.