Upskilling, proper incentives to boost remittances: migration experts

Migration experts have identified a lack of arrangements for upskilling outgoing workers as well as poor incentives, claiming that resolving the issues can significantly increase remittance inflows.

"Why don't you offer 10% to workers directly as remittance incentives?" Ananya Raihan, chief executive officer of iSocial Limited, posed a question at the event titled "Migration in Bangladesh: Contribution towards Graduation from LDC Status."

He claimed that if the incentive is offered at such a high rate, remittance inflows will more than double in the next three to six months, and Bangladesh will be able whether the foreign exchange crisis.

Currently, Bangladeshi expatriates get 2.5% cash incentives for sending money home through banking channels.

Ananya Raihan said, "We are very reluctant to give something to workers but very eager to give to the owners of the factories or companies."

Nurul Islam, a technical and vocational training specialist at the government's Skills for Employment Investment Programme, said, "Our private recruiting agencies' main target is only earnings as they do not have any significant investment in migrant workers like skill development."

"On the other hand, technical training centres under the expatriate ministry are not equipped enough as they lack teachers and technologies to provide skills at an expected level," he added. 

Currently, around 1.30 crore Bangladeshis are working as labour migrants, according to government data. The country sent a record 11.35 lakh workers last year.

ILO Bangladesh's Chief Technical Adviser Laetitia Weibel Roberts said as Bangladesh progresses into a middle-income country, it could be interesting to have scenarios on what migration continues to look like in the future.

She said moving to a middle-income country will increase investment and job creation in Bangladesh and may also raise the minimum wage.

She added that once the minimum wage is raised, aspirant migrants will be debating whether to go overseas for a wage that is still competitive in the domestic market.

"I don't think migration flow is going to decline as the consequences of LDC graduation. I think may be in many cases it will increase," said Ishita Shruti, Head-Migration Policy and Sustainable Development at IOM Bangladesh. 

"Maybe because of 4IR, the type of migration will change. So we have to prepare that way," she added.

Former foreign secretary Shahidul Haque stated that migration would be unaffected because the labour market is not governed by LDC criteria.

Shahidul, now a senior advisor at IOM Bangladesh, stressed the importance of focusing exclusively on areas such as mobility, remittances, and governance.