The 2019 has been rather a bumpy year for people seeking overseas employment when deportation from destination countries picked up speed.
The outgoing year has not witnessed the opening of closed markets, rationalisation of migration costs, and dents in fraudulent practices in the process of sending workers and human trafficking.
Policies restricting foreign workers' influx, economic reforms, slow development work and workplace exploitation in the destination countries have dampened the prospect for overseas employment, analysts said.
Between January and November, the number of overseas employments declined to 604,060 from 684,962 in the same period of 2018, according to the data available with the state-run Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training, BMET.
The outflow of workers was 0.7 million in 2018, down from 1.0 million in 2017.
Saudi Arabia, which is the largest destination for Bangladeshi workers, slapped a ban on recruiting foreign workers in 42 trades, which has significantly shrunk the scope for jobs there.
Because of the ban, a large number of Bangladeshi workers, who went to the oil-rich Arab country with so-called free visas, faced difficulties in getting jobs. Many of them were deported by the Saudi authorities.
A total of 55,335 Bangladeshis were deported on various grounds, including the expiry of visas, during the January-November period.
Of them, 24,281 workers, including women, returned home from Saudi Arabia alone, almost double the total figure, immigration data showed.
At least 1,200 women workers who returned from Saudi Arabia received services from BRAC at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, BRAC officials said.
Still, workers' money was a bright spot: The flow of inward remittances amounted to US$ 16.64 billion in the 11 months to November, more than the amount Bangladesh received last year.
And Bangladesh Bank projected that money sent home by overseas Bangladeshis would reach $18.34 billion by the end of December 2019 from $15.54 billion a year ago.
Experts said weakening local currency against the US dollar and cash incentives pushed up the inflow of remittances in the recent months.
Meanwhile, human traffickers are still active.
They are trying to send workers to Europe via sea route.
A boat carrying 64 migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan sank on Thursday in eastern Turkey's Lake Van.
With the demand for less-skilled labour force declining fast globally, experts said the government should lay emphasis on sending skilled migrants.
Otherwise, Bangladesh will lose its manpower markets soon, they said.
If the country can increase the number of skilled workers, remittance inflow will pick up substantially while workers' protection will be better, they said.
But there was no significant initiative from the government side to create skilled workforce in 2019, they added.
It is necessary to create demand-based skills and upgrade training for overseas jobseekers as the market is changing fast, said Shakirul Islam, chairman of Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP), a community-based organisation working for migrant workers.
The authorities should opt for preparing a comprehensive policy to create required skilled workforce to stay competitive in the global job market, he argued.
Shariful Islam Hasan, programme head of Brac Migration Programme, said the situation with regard to high migration cost, malpractices by middlemen, human trafficking in the name of labour migration remained almost unchanged in 2019.
The government should step up vigilance in these areas in the coming days, he said.
He also said for the last two years, the much-talked issue was returnee women migrant workers from Saudi Arabia.
But this year the ministry has taken some initiatives to help ensure the protection of women workers in destination countries.
In a report this year, the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment revealed for the first time the exploitation of women migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.
"This is a positive initiative from the government side," he said.
The ministry also met the Saudi authorities on women workers' issue and mutually determined a to-do list aimed at protecting female migrants, Mr Hasan added.
According to the BMET data, over 12 million Bangladeshis had gone abroad with jobs since 1976, of which almost one-third found their employment in Saudi Arabia alone.
