DHAKA, Jan 01, 2025 (BSS) – Bangladesh has received over US$26.889b remittance in 2024 while nearly 10.11 lakhs workers went abroad with jobs during the period, official sources said here today.

They said the overseas employment sector has achieved the success as Bangladesh made its strong presence visible in the international forums like Colombo Process, a regional consultative process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia. 

Recruiting agents and migrant workers right groups said overseas employment faced a setback in some traditional destinations like Malaysia but identification of new destinations and intensified demand of Bangladeshi workforce in several countries reversed the situation. 

According to a ministry source, a total of 10,10,931 Bangladeshi nationals went abroad with job last year while the figure was over 13,05,453 in 2023. Besides, the country received remittances of US$26,889.54 million in the last year from the expatriate Bangladeshis, they added.

Talking to BSS Deputy Director (current charge) of Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) Mohammad Jahirul Alam Majumder said out of the total overseas job seekers, 9,59,533 were male and 60,582 were female went abroad with employment in 2024.

“We’ve been working to increase number of overseas migrant workers as well as ensure the rights and protection of them,” he said.

In this connection, he said the government has explored some new destinations including Russia, Brunei Darussalam and Eastern Europe for the skilled and semi-skilled workers and is now sending on an average over 750,000 workers abroad each month.

According to the Bangladesh Bank's latest statistics, expatriate Bangladeshis sent over US$26,889.54 million remittances from January 1 to December 31 in 2024.

It said remittance inflow in the country is witnessed a robust growth this year as Bangladesh's gross foreign exchange reserves has crossed US$26 billion now.

Experts said that expatriates have sent the money saved from their regular necessary and other costs to the country. 

They said the government to invest in developing need-based skilled manpower like nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers, as their demand would increase in many countries.

The government set up many training centres in different districts along with skill development programmes to create skilful jobseekers. 

Job seekers usually get various trainings including diploma in ship building engineering, refrigeration and air-conditioning, general mechanics, electrical machine maintenance, auto CAD 2D and 3D, welding (6G), catering, mason, Korean, Arabic, canton, Japanese language and others.

The government also encouraged documented overseas employment, as an important component of earning foreign currency.

Earlier, the government declared the overseas employment sector as a “thrust sector” with maximum stress upon further expanding job markets for the Bangladeshi job seekers abroad.