Investment needed to tackle unemployment

The good news is that education is steadily spreading in the country while the bad news is that there is acute unemployment among the educated. This has given rise to serious frustration and suffering.

The BBS (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) workforce survey for the 2016-17 fiscal reveals a grimmer scenario. It says in last one year there were 100,000 more unemployed. The total number of jobless people, as it was 2.59 million in 2015-16, rose to 2.67 million this year.

Most of the unemployed people are the higher educated ones as 11.20 per cent of them are either graduates or have post graduate degrees while this ratio is 2.70 for those with basic primary education. It shows that the higher the education, the greater the risk of unemployment.

Not only that, there are no new jobs in the country. The last labour force survey said around 130,000 new jobs opened last fiscal. Despite that, 100,000 persons joined the jobless crowd.

Those who were employed were largely uneducated or little-educated, while unemployment for the educated also increased. This indicates there is not enough employment opportunities for the skilled manpower produced in the country.

Meanwhile, 85 per cent of our labour market is still informal-the majority being women and youth. In 2016-17 fiscal, 91.40% in the informal sector were 15 to 24 years old. While 4.80 per cent of the fresh employment was with the women, for men it was only 0.70 per cent.

The BBS survey says, the unemployment rate remained at a constant 4.20 per cent. So the new 100,000 unemployment could only be explained by rapid population growth.

The population will increase every year with an increase in unemployment. This calls for appropriate policies for fresh employment.

As we are transforming to a developing country, we must prepare to tackle certain challenges, unemployment being one of them. There is no alternative to increased investment. So creating an investment-friendly environment is essential. This includes meeting the energy crisis along with infrastructure development. These two are essential to attract foreign investment.

Effective steps are required for expansion of the export sector. While 80 per cent of our export commodities are readymade garments, there is huge scope for diversified exports. The potential of jute has already been promoted. Industrialisation and export of agricultural products can be increased. The opportunity to increase export commodity production must be exploited. Tourism development is a potential source for more employment.

All these sectors offer jobs to our educated and skilled labour force and we have to deal with the unemployment problem this way.