The government will create a comprehensive database of overseas jobseekers with a view to reducing interference of middlemen in the recruitment process, officials said.
To this end, Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) will launch a registration programme for aspirants soon.
Officials familiar with the development said all necessary works in this regard have already been completed. Now trial of registration is going on. Hopefully, it may start within next two months.
The databank is being prepared as per the provisions of Overseas Employment and Migrants Act-2013. As manpower recruiters will select workers from the database directly, dependency on intermediaries will reduce significantly, they hoped.
About the procedure for recruitment of workers from the databank, an official at BMET said as per the demand of workers from job destination countries, recruiting agencies will communicate with BMET. Then BMET will send a list of required workers to them from the databank.
The selected workers will get SMS on their mobile phones. After completing all procedures, workers will pay recruitment charge through a particular bank.
When asked, the official said the existing one is not a complete database. So, manpower recruiters found it difficult to select workers from this databank.
"But the new database will be prepared as per the recommendations of stakeholders. So hopefully, it will be useful for them."
The candidates should have valid passports to be enlisted in the databank. Besides, they will mention their area of skills in the registration forms, if they have.
The aspirants get registered at District Employment and Manpower Office (DEMO). The registration charge has been fixed at Tk 200 for each. The candidates will have to pay fees through mobile banking.
BMET runs 42 DEMOs across the country.
Every year 600,000 to 700,000 workers go abroad with jobs from Bangladesh.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, about 200,000 workers could go abroad in 2020. More than 13 million Bangladeshis went abroad with jobs since 1976, according to the BMET data.
Migrant workers sent US$21.74 billion remittances home in the just-concluded calendar year 2020, the Bangladesh Bank statistics showed.
