Nothing new for employment, allocations even fall considerably

There is no good news about employment generation in the proposed budget for FY24. Even allocations to four ministries – Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Industries, and Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment – which mostly work for job creation and skill development have decreased significantly.

The budgetary allocation to the employment ministry fell by 24% compared to the revised budget for FY23, while that to the youth ministry dropped by 22% and the industries ministry by 32%, according to the budget documents. Only the overseas employment ministry saw a 39% increase in budget allocation.

Experts believe that the FY24 budget is not meant for employment generation in any way, although there was some rhetoric about job creation in the budget speech. 

"I think the discussion about employment generation was not so strong in the budget speech. These were some wishful thoughts only," said Professor Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem).

Which announcement came about employment in the budget is neither new nor impressive, he told The Business Standard and noted that challenges of job creation will continue until the country's economy gets proper shape.

"Growth in employment in Bangladesh depends on the private sector where I cannot be very optimistic. The budget expected a rapid surge in investment in the private sector but it did not explain how the dramatic progress will happen over the next year," he said, adding that the major financing to the private sector comes from banks.

"As the government wants larger amounts of loans from the banking sector, there would be lower private sector credits," he added.

Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, told TBS that the target of employment generation was not reflected properly in this year's budget. "There were no major initiatives for the unemployed, especially graduates. We just heard about the continuation of old initiatives. This is not enough at all," he said.

The economist believes that the government had the opportunity to fight inflation through rapid employment generation. It could also provide relief to common people. Direct and proactive government initiatives and support to the private sector were crucial for that, he added.

According to the written budget speech, a special allocation of Tk100 crore has been kept in the proposed budget for research, innovation and development work to prepare the economy's driving force - the youth and women – for the fourth industrial revolution.

In addition to the skill development initiative, necessary steps will be taken to create job opportunities for the youth in the country as well as abroad, it reads. Exploring new destinations for overseas employment will also be continued.

"Online learning opportunities are being created and expanded on various e-learning platforms for general, technical, vocational and entire life-learning. For this, 80,000 youth will be trained in advanced technology and innovation through research and innovation centres of various universities."

Finance Minister Mustafa Kamal said during the last decade and a half, the Awami League government created 2,35,00,000 fresh jobs. In 2023, the total number of jobs was estimated to be 7,11,00,000.

"Employment opportunities for 20 lakh people have been created in the IT, freelancing, software and hardware industry, BPO, e-commerce, ride-sharing, fintech, edu-tech, and internet services sectors. The number of these people will be increased to 30 lakh by 2025," he added.

The number of unemployed individuals in Bangladesh increased to 2.59 million in the first quarter of 2023, up from 2.32 million in the last quarter of 2022, says a Labour Force Survey released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) last month. The survey showed that the unemployment rate is currently 3.51%.

Out of an estimated 144.7 million people in the country's labour force, 73.6 million are employed in blue-collar jobs, while 71.1 million are in white-collar ones.