The  BIDS' study report on 'Labour Market and Skill Gap in Bangladesh'  presented by its director-general KAS Murshid last Sunday has been thought-provoking. The finance minister's appreciative words about it playing 'a pivotal role' in skill development efforts will find a resonance when the research results are put to good use.
In the first place, the study represents a serious official effort at handling a complex set of issues that goes well beyond a simple juxtaposition between demand and supply of labour. Secondly, it seeks to address a long overdue issue, namely that of raising  awareness of all the stakeholders - educational institutions, training outfits, public and private sector employers -- for diversified human resource development. Third, last but not least, the findings should help policy planners to formulate an appropriate, sequential and time-bound strategy for turning the green horns of young men and women into well-trained   employable resource.
We think, two  factors  should propel us on to a  dynamic mode from here on.  On the one hand, there is nothing called missing the bus in matters of employment generation. In other words, we may be lagging behind just now, yet since the economy is growing incrementally, the lost ground is retrievable with the new headway getting replicated exponentially.
On the other hand, there is a shelf-life to reaping demographic dividends which the experts underline as a 15-20-year window of or  doorway to the much prized opportunity of  drawing dividends. Like a celestial phenomenon, however, a revisit of a potential bonanza will be  ages away! Let's take note of that to demonstrate  a redoubled  sense of urgency behind an optimal utilisation of the advantageous demographics.
Projected labour demand/supply graph (source:SEIP/BIDS) between 2016 and 2025 reveals more or less a consistent picture until 2020.Over the five year period - 2016 to 2020 - labour supply  surpasses labour demand by one million except in 2020 when it will touch 1.3 million mark. From 2021 demand would exceed supply.1n 2030 labour demand will be  107 million with  supply  declining to 93 million. Â
The demand-supply balance  notwithstanding,  overall skill gap in agro-food sector is put at 76 per cent with scarcity of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour  estimated at  77, 75 and 75  per cent respectively .
The RMG industry is short of 119, 479 skilled workers, 48,130 semi-skilled and 8,577 unskilled employees. Although overwhelmed by a preponderance of women workers, RMG sector sidetracks women in providing training slots. Â Â Â
The skill gap in the construction sector amounts 200,000 workers. ICT sector is short of 88 thousand hands. Leather goods sector lacks 62,246 skilled, 6664 semi-skilled and 6935 unskilled workers. The light engineering sector is handicapped by 43.3 per cent lack of skilled manpower.
There is a surplus of doctors which means there are fewer jobs for them than their annual turn-outs. In a country where the doctor:patient ratio is abysmally low this is inexplicable. Also a major weakness in the health care system is the dearth of nurses.
There is work to be done in certain areas. Most of the skills acquisition took place through on the job-training rather than via a formal process. It is interesting to note that factories are unwilling to send their employees for training lest they are lost to higher bidders.Â
Along with an expansion of in-house training facilities in private and public sector industries, we have to go for strings of technical and vocational institutes tailor-made to cater for market demands for jobs at home and abroad.Â
Fundamentally, there has been a shift in the labour market in terms of trainability. The share of illiterate labour force has halved from 40 per cent in 2006 to 21 per cent in 2013. The number of youths with higher secondary and above level of education has doubled from 8.5 per cent in 2006 to 18.9 per cent in 2013. Another statistics adds value to the outlook: 5,74 thousand people had received technical and vocational training in 2013 compared with 80 thousand in 2010.
Our whole approach so far has been towards manual-based labour employment. Indeed the last elephant in the room is an increasing trend towards higher technology acquisition. This, to an extent, that even robotics is replacing man behind machines. In the past the advanced countries would move to higher technologies and let go of past-vintage technologies to the developing countries. There would have been a time-lag in the transfer of the processes. But now-a-days  up-end developing countries quickly buy off the latest technology thereby competitively edging out their rivals.
In this context, the contents and directions of projections will themselves need  to be updated keeping in view the  rapidly changing  science and technology. We would suggest two task forces be formed: the first one is  to address the imperative need for  increased and customised employability of our human resources  while the second one devise  ways to make us  adoptive to the latest surge of technological advancement.
Let dialogues between stakeholders be a constant feature at the cusp of rapid change the world is caught up in. Â
safarihi43@gmail.com
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Overcoming skill gaps needn\'t be a mirage
Marksman | Published: July 25, 2017 21:32:26 | Updated: October 25, 2017 04:27:04
Overcoming skill gaps needn\'t be a mirage
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