by Naim-Ul-Karim
DHAKA, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Remittance-reliant Bangladesh witnessed big boom in overseas employment in 2016 amid growing demand of huge workforce particularly in Middle East and Asian countries, an official said on Monday.
Selim Reza, director general of Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), told Xinhua that "757,731 Bangladeshis in 2016 found overseas jobs, a rise of more than 36 percent over the same period of the previous year."
He said huge demand for mostly blue-collar jobs helped more Bangladeshi job aspirants to find overseas employment last year.
Of the total overseas employment 2016, Reza said more than two-thirds of Bangladeshi workers found jobs in countries including Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The BMET chief expressed the hope that the soaring trend in overseas employment would continue this year as Bangladesh-based recruiting agencies are getting more appointment letters for workers this year.
He said Southeast Asian nation Malaysia, among other countries, will likely recruit huge workers from Bangladesh this year.
Bangladeshi Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam had earlier said some 800,000 Bangladeshis would be able to go abroad with overseas employment this year if the current trend continued.
According to the minister, some 10.5 million Bangladeshis have been living and working in about 162 countries.
The minister said his government was trying to send more Bangladeshis abroad alongside protecting the existing destinations.
He said they were working to create more employment opportunities for Bangladeshis in Russia, Australia, Thailand and Europe.
Officials said the Bangladeshi government has been seeking to send more Bangladeshis abroad to keep inflow of remittances, major source of foreign currency for the country, undisturbed.
"The flow of inward remittances in the first four months of the current 2016-17 fiscal year (July 2016-June 2017) fell 15 percent to 5.21 billion U.S. dollars," data from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) showed.
The country's 2015-16 fiscal year (July 2015-June 2016) remittance inflow dipped 2.55 percent to 14.93 billion U.S. dollars.
Against this backdrop, officials said overseas employment boom in the last year came as a big bless for remittance-reliant Bangladesh.
They, however, expected a boom inflow of remittances in the near future as soaring trend in employment in traditional Middle Eastern, Asian countries would likely continue this year.
According to the officials, the bulk of remittances, which contribute to around 11 percent of Bangladesh's GDP, comes from Middle East countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, followed by Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Italy, Britain and the United States.
