DHAKA, Feb 15, 2019 (BSS) – International Labour Organisation (ILO) has
said the employment rate in Bangladesh and other countries in the region
exceeded the global average and was expected to remain so in the coming years
in view of government’s social protection measures.
“The regional unemployment rate (in Asia and Pacific countries including
Bangladesh) is projected to remain at around 3.6 percent until 2020, below
the global average,” the ILO said in its World Employment and Social Outlook:
Trends 2019 (WESO), released recently.
It said the global average of the unemployment rate was 5.6 percent while
the figure was around 3.6 percent in Bangladesh and the other Asia and
Pacific nations.
ILO attributed Bangladesh’s better employment scenario to significant
social protection measures while the countries with higher poverty rates
lacked such measures.
The global labour watchdog, however, said structural transformation moved
huge workers out of agriculture, but this could not create significant
improvements in job quality in the region.
It found a large proportion of workers lacked job security, written
employment contracts and income stability.
“Like many countries in the region, Bangladesh is facing a number of
challenges related to job security, child labour, and equal and fair payment
for women workers,” ILO Bangladesh Country Director Tuomo Poutiainen said
coinciding with the release of the study.
He said if Bangladesh was to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
by 2030 there was a need to ramp up its efforts on improving social
protection, skills training and occupational safety and health.
“Bangladesh needs to create millions of decent and sustainable jobs each
year if it wants to reduce poverty and reach middle-income status.
Poutiainen, however, said Bangladesh government made important progress in
these areas and continued to move forward to work on many important labour
reforms jointly with ILO and other development partners.
Bangladesh’s Labour and Employment ministry along with the Planning
Commission recently commenced a work with ILO on a comprehensive jobs
strategy.
The ILO country chief expected the initiative to contribute to new
employment initiatives with a special focus on women and youth.
The ILO report reveals a majority of the 3.3 billion people employed
globally in 2018 had inadequate economic security, material well-being and
equality of opportunity.
The progress in reducing unemployment globally was not being reflected in
improvements in the quality of work either.
ILO feared the persistence of a number of major deficits in decent work and
warning that at the current rate of progress, attaining the goal of decent
work for all, as set out in the SDGs seemed unrealistic for many countries.
The report cautioned that some new business models, including those enabled
by new technologies, threatened to undermine existing labour market
achievements – in areas such as improving employment formality and security,
social protection and labour standards.
It said the scenario appeared for the policymakers as a major challenge.