‘Usual budget’ to salvage unusual job crisis

Although the government claims that creating new jobs will be its fourth priority in the next fiscal year, economists said the proposed budget looks nothing extraordinary and lacks a comprehensive approach.    

They said the proposed budget should have special measures for employment generation.

In the budget proposal, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal allocated Tk100 crore for the "Rural Social Services Programme", which he said will generate employments for the poor and rural people.

The minister in his budget speech said, "A large number of people have become jobless due to the virus-led shutdown which shuttered factories, restaurants and other businesses." 

Referring to the Asian Development Bank estimate, he feared that the number of jobless people due to the pandemic could rise to 1.4 million. 

BRAC, DataSense and Unnayan Shamannay  conducted a survey last May on 962 people in 25 districts and found at least one individual from 34.8 percent of the families has lost jobs.

Executive Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) Dr Selim Raihan said the virus situation still shows no improvement even this June. 

"We expected the budget to have special employment generation measures. But there is no comprehensive approach in it. It is an ordinary budget," Dr Selim Raihan said.

Against such a backdrop, Mustafa Kamal said the already-declared Tk103,117 crore stimulus packages will salvage the virus-hit job market.  

Beside, a Tk20,000 crore package had offered an opportunity for the SMEs to manage their working capital. But the package is still in the preparatory stages of disbursement and it is difficult to draw a comprehensive assessment of its effectiveness.

Centre for Policy Dialogue Research Director Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem recently told a seminar that banks are not interested in providing loans under the SME stimulus package. There is little scope for small businesses to get loans under the stimulus package.

The finance minister said a fund of Tk2,000 crore for low-cost loan support to the SMEs has been created to be disbursed through Palli Sanchay Bank, Probashi Kallyan Bank, Karmasangsthan Bank and Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF). 

Dr Nazneen Ahmed, senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said, "The expected employment generation pathway is absent in the budget. The proposed Tk100 crore under 'Rural Social Services Programme' is not sufficient to make a vibrant rural economy."

Mentioning the allocation for agriculture in the budget, Dr Nazneen Ahmed said, "I think the government plans to create employment through the agriculture sector."   

In the proposed budget, the finance minister talked about generating one crore new jobs at Economic Zones (EZs).

But, Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute, sounded skeptical on it. 

He said, "We are failing to seize the businesses shifting from China now. The government has taken numerous initiatives to establish economic zones for investors, but they are still not ready for investment. Besides, we are far behind in ease of doing business."