The overseas jobs for Bangladeshi workers declined by about 28 per cent in January this year compared to the corresponding period of previous year, official statistics showed.
Insiders have attributed such lower outflow of workers mainly to a cut in recruitment by Saudi Arabia, the largest destination for the Bangladeshi workers.
Bangladesh sent 59,037 workers in January 2019 as against 81,846 in the same month last year, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) data.
Sector insiders and migration experts said Bangladesh has been depending on the single market since 2016 after resuming manpower recruitment by Saudi Arabia, terming it very risky for a country.
If Bangladesh fails to expand its market, it will be very difficult to keep stable the growth of overseas jobs, they said.
As the country cannot create available job opportunities for its youths, overseas employment is important for Bangladeshi job seekers, the experts said.
The suggested formulation of a long-term policy with restructuring the education and training systems to facilitate improving the workers' skills to a standard to be suitable for the job destinations.
They also recommended taking measures to diversify the job markets.
The BMET data revealed that Saudi Arabia recruited the highest 30,151 workers, followed by Oman 8,327, Qatar 7,871 and Singapore 3,671 in January this year.
Saudi Arabia banned 12 categories of jobs for foreign workers in early 2018 as part of an economic reform, leading to a massive shrinkage of job opportunities in the oil-rich country. Besides, the development activities in the country also remain slow at present.
A total of 734,181 workers went abroad in 2018 while the number was over 1.0 million in 2017.
The wage earners last year sent home US$15.53 billion, contributing around 13 per cent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to an estimate.
