Why learn new skills when the battery rickshaw pays today?

Galib graduated from a degree college in Dhamrai with a plan. He was learning computer skills to go abroad as a migrant worker, the route a generation of rural young men has taken out of poverty. Then one of his neighbours advised him to try driving a battery-run autorickshaw instead. Galib never looked back. 

"I was preparing to go abroad, but that required money I did not have," he said. "The auto pays me every day. I earn about Tk30,000 a month." 

In Rampura, Afzal used to work as a tailor. Then he too discovered the autorickshaw. 

Infograph: TBS

"At the tailor shop, I was paid by the piece, and some weeks there were no pieces," he said. "On the auto, I earn more, and I earn daily."

Similarly, Akmol, a former electrician in Gazipur, today drives an autorickshaw in Mirpur. 

"I was climbing poles and handling live wires every day," he said. "This feels safer, and it pays almost the same. Why take the risk anymore?" 

These three stories paint a clear picture about an economy that is failing to produce the jobs its young people trained for, and about a vehicle that has quietly become Bangladesh's largest unofficial employment scheme. 

According to the Bangladesh Labour Force  Survey 2024, battery-run autorickshaws employ around 1.16 million pullers nationwide, and it needs no employer, no training and no factory. And that is exactly why it should worry us. 

Young, new and indebted

The most rigorous recent snapshot comes from INNOVISION Consulting's "Urban Mobility Study: Rickshaws in Transition", released in January. 

It surveyed 384 drivers, 392 passengers and 63 garage owners in Dhaka. Battery rickshaw drivers have a median age of 38, compared with 42 for pedal pullers, and 34% are between 26 and 35. They are better educated, with 32% having studied beyond Class 6. Nearly 60% have less than two years' experience. Pedal pullers average 15 years. 

What matters most is where these drivers came from. Only a quarter previously pulled pedal rickshaws. The rest are new entrants like former farmers (21%), salaried employees (12%), garment workers, small business owners and drivers. 

While presenting the findings at a recent event, INNOVISION Managing Director Md Rubaiyath Sarwar said the battery rickshaw is no longer a temporary phenomenon but an urban reality. The research showed the influx as a reflection of the job deficit in rural Bangladesh.

The money explains the pull, and it also explains the trap. A self-owned battery rickshaw grosses about Tk970 a day, nearly double a pedal rickshaw. But 79% of battery drivers rent. They pay around Tk414 a day, almost half their gross, which leaves them Tk418. A rented pedal rickshaw leaves its driver Tk484. Those who buy usually rely on NGO or microfinance loans averaging about Tk80,000.

An economy that grows without hiring

Why are degree-holders and skilled tradesmen choosing this?

Mahtab Uddin, assistant professor of economics at the University of Dhaka and honorary research director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modelling (SANEM), explained, "We have roughly 72 million people in the labour force. Every year, around 2 million people enter the labour market looking for work," he said. "Perhaps 200,000 go abroad. But where will the remaining 1.5–1.6 million people go?" 

The official numbers sharpen the question. Unemployment hit 4.63% in the October–December quarter of 2024, the highest in 23 years, and the number of employed people fell by roughly 3.02 million compared with a year earlier. 

Of the 26.24 lakh unemployed in the last survey, close to nine lakh were graduates, the highest jobless rate of any education group. Factory work is not absorbing the surplus. Manufacturing grew by an average of 9.1% a year between 2016 and 2022, yet jobs in the sector shrank by 9.6% over the same period, according to the World Bank. The 2023 Labour Force Survey found 92.1% of employed youth working informally.

Mahtab draws a distinction that explains the boom. "When manufacturing creates jobs, that employment represents derived demand. People are hired because they are needed to produce something," he said.

"Rickshaw pulling is essentially self-employment. Nobody necessarily has to hire them. When the economy stops hiring, the occupation that needs no hirer fills the gap." 

AKM Ashraf Uddin, executive director of the Bangladesh Labour Foundation, said, "We are not creating enough new jobs in the secondary market. We continue to depend heavily on the RMG sector and its backward linkages. As a result, jobs are shrinking." 

A safety valve that becomes a trap

The battery rickshaw has absorbed workers the formal economy rejected. It may be tempting to call it technological progress with a positive effect on employment. But a safety valve is not a career. 

Driving builds no skills and offers no ladder. Galib's computer training fades a little every month he spends behind the handlebars. Akmol's wiring skills go unused. The workforce loses a skilled tailor like Afzal. 

Moreover, it is not safe either. In the INNOVISION survey, 30% of battery rickshaw passengers reported accidents, against 18% for pedal rickshaws.

There are wider costs too. As fleets swell, drivers report falling earnings. Farmers in districts like Barguna say farmhands are scarce and now demand more than Tk1,000 a day. 

A CLEAN study estimates the vehicles draw 659MW, about 2.5% of installed capacity. 

Regulate the vehicle, but repair the economy

Banning the vehicle will not work. Each past ban has collapsed under protest. Regulating it only as a traffic problem misses the point. 

Ashraf Uddin said, "The first task is counting, and every vehicle must be registered. As INNOVISION recommends, registration can be tied to affordable credit, with design standards to reduce accidents." 

The second task is to treat the sector as an industry. 

"The first priority is to develop the ecosystem alongside the regulatory framework," Ashraf further said, pointing to local battery manufacturing, recycling and maintenance. Each of these could turn a dead-end job into skilled work. 

The hardest task lies outside transport. Bangladesh needs manufacturing beyond garments, an investment climate that rewards hiring, and jobs outside Dhaka. Mahtab Uddin argued that creating employment in divisional and district towns would ease Dhaka's congestion and its migration pressure at once. 

Skills training must connect to actual demand at home and abroad, so that someone like Galib can finish what he started. And older pedal pullers who are being displaced need social protection.

The autorickshaw industry was built in backstreet garages by mechanics who saw a need the state ignored. It moves millions of commuters cheaply through lanes no bus can enter. It spared ageing pullers from the physical toll of pedalling. And for many young men it has meant a steady income where there was none. 

Galib, Afzal and Akmol are not making poor choices. They are making sensible ones within the choices they have.

The trouble is that those choices are too narrow. A sector that absorbs workers the economy has failed is doing useful work, but it cannot become the economy's answer to its own failure. If it is formalised, made safer and built into a proper industry, the battery rickshaw can serve as a bridge for workers on their way to something better. 

Left as it is, it risks becoming a holding pen for a generation whose skills slowly go to waste.