The outbreak of coronavirus epidemic is posing a serious threat to the country’s manpower exports to the Middle Eastern countries, the largest labor export destination from Bangladesh. Moreover, as Kuwait and Qatar have banned the entry of any individual from seven countries, including Bangladesh, people who have returned home to enjoy their leave, have fallen in deep trouble.
Most of them fear that, if they are not able to make reentry into their respective destinations within the stipulated time, their visas will expire and they will be unemployed. At the same time, remittance inflow from the Middle East will decrease to a great extent.
According to government information, it has a target of exporting 10 lakh manpower to different destinations of the world. However, due to lethal virus panic, in the first two months, only 70000 of the total have gone abroad.
The Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET) information showed the country sent workers to 168 countries. As of November 2019, the total number of Bangladeshi workers sent abroad was 604,006 while it was 734,181 in 2018.
Ministry Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment sources said that the government is working to reopen the closed labor markets this year. However, the epidemic may create an obstacle to sending more workers abroad. Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) Senior Vice President Shahadat Hossain told The Bangladesh Post that, “The virus outbreak is going to immediately affect the pipeline people who are supposed to go different destinations. However, as they have limited visa validity, with them, business people will face a crisis”.
“As remittance comes in large amount from the Middle East, the virus is going to put a barrier to remittance flow in the long run”, he added. “In this situation, we are going to urge the foreign authorities to increase visa validity considering the virus outbreak”, he further added.
“In almost all countries except Saudi Arabia, there has been a barrier to sending workers. We are a little apprehensive that the target this year would not be achieved”, BAIRA’s Joint Secretary General Sajjad Hossain said.
