Over the past eight years until fiscal year 2023-24, the country’s economy grew by more than 50 percent, painting a rosy picture of performance by major sectors, while the expansion did not translate into job creation.
Warnings from World Bank should be taken seriously
Take proper steps based on its recommendations
There is no certainty that the economic aspects won’t deteriorate further.
Latest BBS data shows a bleak state of unemployment in the country.
Fresh graduates, their faces pale and uncertain, spent 2024 poring over newspaper job advertisements, applying for any suitable position and frantically appearing for recruitment exams in Dhaka.
The past government had been relying on international definitions and standards that are over four decades old to measure labour data, painting a rosy picture of low unemployment and an improved labour market.
A recent Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) publication revealed that 28 percent (one out of four) of National University students remain unemployed after graduation.
Bangladesh has an oversupply of tertiary graduates and the unemployment rate among the educated youth has grown 2.5 times since 2010 as they are ‘incompatible’ with the structure of the industries and the economy, according to the white paper on the state of the economy.
Specific policy incentives are needed to stimulate the economy and revive the labour market.
