The interim government has created 86,277 new jobs through a number of projects undertaken by 6 government ministries over the past 100 days. Youth, Sports, and Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperative Adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan said it on Sunday.
The adviser also detailed out, the new jobs were created across several ministries, including the Ministry of Public Administration, Ministry of Labour and Employment, ICT Division, Bangladesh Public Service Commission, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs, as well as in the tax sector.
In short, 2,468 jobs were created in the tax sector while remaining 83,809 were in other training sectors. Moreover, he also emphasized on the interim government's plan to create an additional 500,000 jobs over the next two years.
However, the number of unemployed individuals with undergraduate degrees in Bangladesh is between 2.5 million to 2.6 million, adding 500,000 more new jobs aims to employ more youngsters from this group in the coming years.
We wholeheartedly welcome this significant achievement of the Interim Government attained in such short and also a challenging period.
Barely a month ago a World Bank report on Bangladesh painted a grim picture of the country's employment scenario, particularly among the tertiary-educated youth. It revealed that unemployment rate in the country had tripled among graduates in the last 9 years. Moreover, job losses and wage cuts also posed a threat to push nearly 1.2 million people below the poverty line this year.
It is no short of our misfortune that we have not seen any substantial shift in our education policy to produce graduates with up-to-date and industry-specific skills. Over the years, private and public tertiary educational institutions have mushroomed without a foresight as to the demands of local and global industries.
Even sadder is that government jobs in the country absorbs less than 5 percent of the total workforce, and understandably cannot be a long-term solution for our unemployment crisis.
However, empowering our youth with newer skills in collaboration with industries would be an effective strategy to tackle the perennial unemployment dilemma.
In the long run, as in full agreement with the Interim Government, the goal should be to initiate reforms that lead to job creation in the private sector, encourage entrepreneurship and restructure the education system, so to better prepare graduates and align their skills with the demands of local and international employers.
Last but not least, creating new jobs require increased investments while establishing new businesses. However, despite steady economic growth over the past decade, investment in Bangladesh remains lower than that of its regional peers.Successive governments have often claimed to have prioritized investment promotion, yet the reality remains completely opposite to all claims.
