36% of employers face skilled labour crisis

At a time when the country's economy is gradually shifting from agriculture to industries, 36% of employers are finding that there is a shortage of skilled workers.

The disclosure was made at a seminar organised by the National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) titled "Skills Development for Inclusive Growth in Bangladesh", held at the multipurpose hall of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority in Agargaon yesterday.

Addressing the seminar as the chief guest, Ahmed Kaikaus, principal secretary to the prime minister, said there was no alternative to the government's vision of 2021 for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and becoming a developed country by 2041 than building skilled manpower.

This would also be required to achieve the country's Delta Plan, 2100 and only the creation of skilled manpower could tackle global challenges and ensure the country's economic prosperity.

He said a section of the youth has been deprived of training opportunities for a long time due to the Covid-19 epidemic, while many have lost jobs. In such uncertain times, people have become digital-dependent. At the same time, some people's incomes have increased through freelancing, but for the success to be sustained in the post-pandemic period, social and professional changes needed to be taken into account.

In this view, Kaikaus said it was necessary to formulate policies to ensure the effectiveness of conventional training courses by modernising those and adapting to future technologies.

President of the Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury (Parvez), during his address, said that skilled workers should be developed as per the demand of the industry.

The government wants to create 30 million skilled manpower by 2030, whereas at present the annual demand was 1.84 million in the country and five million abroad.

He said that at present 2.1 million people are joining the labour market in the country every year. Of those in the 25-54 age bracket, 82% are in some form of informal employment, but only 6.3% are in the formal economy.

Meanwhile, 53% are technically and moderately skilled, while 40.8% are completely incompetent, he said.

Anwar said the government wants to collect $150 billion in remittance by 2025, but for it, seven million skilled workers were required against the current 2.6 million.

The BCI president said 80% of the 16.9 crore people in Bangladesh were employed and the unemployment rate was 12.3%. By 2030, the population aged 18-35 will stand at six crore, he said, adding that this would make it necessary to ensure the training of these workers for markets at home and abroad.

He also called upon businessmen to cooperate with the government in formulating various policies to achieve the expected economic growth.

Keynote speaker Professor Habibur Rahman said that about 22 lakh youth are being added to the labour market in Bangladesh every year.

Now was the time to take advantage of the demographic dividend by converting the manpower into a skilled one, which would increase productivity and remittance earnings.

Dulal Krishna Saha, executive chairman, NSDA, who presided over the function, said, "It is very important to make the working population efficient, according to the demands of the labour market."

In this regard, he said the NSDA was working under the direction of the prime minister to make human resources more skilled as per domestic and international demand. The current scenario, however, was not promising as there was a gap between industry and education.

"We need skilled trainers," he said.

Professor Ahmed Sayem of the industrial and production department at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology said a national qualification framework was needed.

He suggested identifying which sectors were growing and developing a curriculum accordingly.

Professor Mohammad Shahadat Hossain Siddiqui, Department of Economics, Dhaka University, also spoke on the occasion.