'Labour migration to Malaysia at low cost likely from February'

Md Shahidul Alam, the director general of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training
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Md Shahidul Alam is the director general of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), a regulatory body for overseas employment and training. Overseas employment is one of the major sectors for the country's development as this brings in huge amounts of foreign remittance every year.

Overseas employment has been affected badly by coronavirus. However, the sector has started turning around. The government has signed an MoU with Malaysia to send Bangladeshi migrants to the Southeast Asian nation. Shadidul Alam, a former deputy commissioner of Barishal, recently talked to Prothom Alo (English) about labour migration and more at his office in Kakrail of the capital.

Q :

What is the current status of labour migration?

Labour migration has been affected due to coronavirus, but the situation is improving gradually. Some 102,861 migrants obtained BMET clearance to go abroad for jobs in November while the number stood at 131,316 in December. We hope we will break the record in January. It is a big achievement that 70 to 75 per cent of our migrants are going to Saudi Arabia.

Alongside the traditional markets like UAE, Oman, Jordan and Singapore, some migrants are going to Malta, Romania and Poland.

Most of the visas have come on individual capacity, private recruiting agencies have arranged these jobs. Recruiting agencies mainly look for jobs abroad. BMET is a regulatory body. BMET also controls illegal and unsafe migration.

Q :

What is BMET doing for hassle free labour migration?

A migrant needs a smart card to go abroad for work. The smart card is checked at the airport. If you have you picture on your mobile, it will be checked. There will be a device there. If you are cleared by BMET, it will appear on the monitor that the certain person is cleared. Even if someone's card is lost, then it will remain online.

A migrant has to receive PDO training. There is the Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO) certificate which I and the principals of different Technical Training Centres (TTC) sign. If a person undergoes training, there will be a record on the college website that the person got the training. When he or she comes for clearance and he will give his PDO number and I will match it on my system. There is no necessity to print the certificate. When we see the PDO is okay, the visa is okay, then you need not make PDO certificate.

An aspirant migrant has to get admitted for PDO. Earlier, someone had to go to his or her own district for PDO. Suppose a certain migrant is a youth of 30 years. He is from Manikganj and has a job in Rangpur and then gets an opportunity to go abroad for work. He had to go to Manikganj for training. If his office doesn't grant leave, if the training is possible in the district of his workplace, he can do it there in a short time.

Suppose an unemployed person hasn't see Rangamati and he wants to go there. He can do the PDO at Rangamati and visit the hill district. He can stay there at a hotel and can receive PDO training in the morning and can hang out in the afternoon for three days. What is harm? There is no harm.

Someone can go to Cox's Bazar and do PDO at the Cox's Bazar TTC. He or she can enjoy the longest sea beach. Someone doesn't need be be in his own district for training.

What we have done is ensure that any person can receive PDO training anytime and in any district if he or she wants to go abroad.

Earlier, when an aspirant migrant got the visa, he or she would attend training. But before getting visa, the ill-fated migrant had already paid Tk 300,000 to the middleman. So what is the benefit of training? During the training they are told, you must be cautious and don't go to the middlemen. What is the effect of this training?

Ahead of getting visa, if he thinks he is fit to going abroad, the aspirant can get admitted online and attend training.

After receiving training, he will be able to assess the agency which is contacting with him and decide whether he will go through that agency or check another agency. He can decide whether to go to the country the agency is talking about or to another country. The agency talks about the required skills. The aspirant can decide on skill training, on learning the language of a certain country where he would go. The aspirant will get time for preparation.

Earlier, what would happen? The airlines ticket would come, but the certificate would not be ready. The migrant concerned would be in a fix as to what to do. He would approach the DG, saying, sir, give me permission. I have no time to attend training. I will miss my flight. So what is important, ticket or training? The ticket is important. You don't need training, so just go. In that way, the discipline is broken. We have changed these processes in six months and now the migrants can go abroad hassle free.

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Q :

What is the prospect of the Malaysian labour market under the latest MoU?

The recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with Malaysia on 19 December 2021 is a unique employers' pay model. Employers will bear major cost of migration. The Southeast Asian nation will hire workers for all sectors including digging, plantation, factories, manufacturing, as per their demand.

It is a success of the government that it has been able to open the market which remained shut following alleged anomalies in the recruitment process since 2018.

Another good aspect of the agreement is that they are giving importance to the digital platform. Aspirants will not be simply picked up from the field.

The skills will be classified of those who are interested to go. They have to be registered with BMET. Malaysia will select migrants from the BMET database in a systematic way. In accordance with the Malaysian employers' requirements including skills and age, they will select workers from the BMET database. As a result, BMET will be compelled to go for automation, which did not exist in the past.

Q :

What would be the role of middlemen?

In the past the recruiting agencies would collect workers through the middlemen. The role of middlemen will decrease gradually. We can't say the role of middlemen will be eliminated totally. The database we will create the middlemen can assist the workers to register with BMET database.

If BMET has a list of workers in its database, then the cost for middlemen will not be required. The workers are available in the BMET database.

Out of a systematic channel, if an individual person says he has collected visas for 20 people, the person will not get permission. He has to process from the list.

Labour migration
File Photo

Q :

How will the demand come?

Say, a Bangladeshi private recruiter collected a demand of 500 workers. As per Malaysian employers' requirements including age group, education and training, the recruiter finds the workers from the BMET database. The workers have numbers. Then the recruiters can submit the list of workers to us or send to the Malaysian recruiting agencies or companies. Malaysian company can hire workers directly, or they can assign Malaysian recruiting agencies. Then they will issue visas. Then other activities will start. They are supposed to provide the airline ticket.

The respective aspirant has to make a passport, carry out medical fitness check-up, get registered with BMET and become member of wage earners. We can expect migration cost will not be high.

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Q :

Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) in a press conference recently alleged that the labour migration to Malaysia will take place through syndication. What is the authenticity of this news?

This news is being circulated in the market, but it has no authenticity. BMET or the government has no such information. There is no name of any specific recruiting agencies and no mention of any limitations in the MoU. Actually, nothing is mentioned. Recruiting agencies will be independent. If they can arrange the demand, they will be able to send workers as they do for other countries. Demands come in the name of companies. A foreign recruiting company gives demand letters to the recruiting agency that a certain company needs such number of workers from Bangladesh. If the recruiting agencies can arrange demands, they can send migrants.

In a free market economy, we cannot say give demand letters to specific recruiting agencies. They are open and independent. If someone who goes to Malaysia and can prove credibility and acceptability to the Malaysian employer or companies, that recruiting agency will be able to arrange demand letters. Actually, the Malaysian companies and employers choose the recruiting agencies and hire workers from Bangladesh.

The duty of BMET is to ensure that workers are recruited from the database. The double cost is avoided. Workers can go at a low cost. The workers go after receiving some skills, get jobs and not face hassle there.

Q :

When will labour migration to Malaysia start?

We hoped good news may come from the last week of January. If it is not in January, I think the labour migration may start from February.

Q :

Have you started creating database?

We have not started yet. We will start preparations soon. For registration with BMET, advertisements will be published in the newspaper by January.

In the database, we will include a worker's personal information, profession, skill, whether vaccinated or not, which country they interested to go and passport information.

Maybe we will have the benefit of a database. At least an aspirant migrant has to have a passport to register his or her name. After taking some preparation, he or she will register.

We will register those who are unemployed and received training. It is a new job seekers platform. If it is done, and if 2 million people are enlisted, other countries will see that there is a list of huge number of workers under 40 in Bangladesh.

The migration cost will come down due to selecting workers from database. Usually aspirant migrants go to middlemen, and make passports through them, spending huge amounts of money.

In case of registration, someone first has to make a passport himself or herself and then he or she has to come for registration. He or she does not go to middlemen as migrants will be selected from the database.

Government fees will be Tk 200 for registration. If anyone comes to our office, he or she has to pay Tk 200. If we use any digital apps, there will be a service charge.

During the Covid test, about 1,050,000 migrants registered for the vaccine. The government earned Tk 210 million. The government collected huge amount of revenue. Another benefit of online registration is that if the people movements are reduced, we will remain safe. If someone has to come to office, he or she has to meet people physically and has to spend money for travelling. And it takes time, so we are trying to make it online. If someone has to pay Tk 100 as online charge, it is much less than the travelling cost.

Q :

Will BMET send migrants?

BMET will not send migrants. As a regulatory body, BMET will assist. It has no business and it does not do business. BMET is for all. It has a licence. If BMET gets demand, it would process.

BMET will be pro-people and pro-migrants. We have to prove how we can send migrants easily. Bank loans need to be more popular. Bank loans are given in many cases. Not only Probashi Kalyan Bank, if other banks too provide loans to the migrants, they need not to sell their property.

Ahead of going abroad for work, aspirant migrants have to be aware and informed. If an aspirant is assured of a job abroad, he or she has to assess the competence of the person sending hem abroad. The aspirant has to verify this. Most of the migrants are cheated as they don't know the name of agents. In that case, BMET cannot take measures against the recruiting agents as the witness against the agents is not found.

The person, who will go abroad for work, will have to go to nearby District Employment and Manpower Office (DEMO) for verification of information. The aspirant migrant has to keep a record of which company he or she is paying and has to transact through banks. They have to verify the company letterhead and office.