Manpower recruiters demanded keeping overseas employment sector out of the purview of lockdown considering it an emergency service sector.
Recruiting Agencies Oikko Porishad (RAOP), a panel of manpower recruiters, made the demand in a letter to the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry on Saturday.
The RAOP also demanded recognising the labour migration sector as an emergency service sector and providing due supports during the lockdown period.
The government, however, is going to enforce country-wide strict lockdown from Monday to control the ongoing surge in the Covid-19 transmission.
The association said already thousands of workers spent money to avail air tickets and hotel quarantine worth more than Tk 1.50 billion to go to their job destination countries.
Referring to readymade garment (RMG) sector that had been kept out of the purview of lockdown, the Porishad said overseas employment sector is more important for the country and people than the RMG sector.
If activities of the overseas employment sector remain shutdown, about 0.1 million workers would face a great uncertainty as they are in the process of going abroad.
On the other hand, the migrants who came home on vacation will face same problem because of expiring the validity of their iqama (work permit) and visas.
Manpower receiving countries also would not issue new demand for workers to the country, the association observed.
So, it is necessary to keep air flights open with the countries those are bringing workers from Bangladesh during the pandemic period.
The RAOP thanked the government for taking a good number of time-bound decisions including keeping air flights open with vital destination countries in recent months.
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