Unemployment problem of Bangladesh Unemployment involuntary idleness due to lack of work.

Unemployed refers to persons belonging to the labour force, seeking but not doing any work during a specified period. The 1995-96 Labour Force Survey (LFS) of Bangladesh considered a person of age 10 years and over as unemployed if he/she did not work at all during the preceding week of the survey but was actively looking for work or was available for work. This concept of unemployment in Bangladesh is supplemented by the concepts of visible and invisible underemployment. The total civilian labour force of the country in 1996-97 was estimated at 42.97 million, of which 34.7 million were male and 8.27 million were female. These figures, however excluded the female labour force engaged in activities like poultry, livestock, paddy husking, preservation of food etc conducted in rural households and considered as domestic work rather than economic activities. The 1995-96 LFS estimated the female participation rate at 18.1%. The labour force in Bangladesh grew faster than the population and had almost doubled between the year of independence and mid 1990s. The employment on man-year basis has, however, increased and the absolute unemployment, as well as underemployment had reduced. The rate of underemployment was 38.78% in 1972-73 and 27.95% in 1996-97. Figures on un- and underemployment vary in official documents as may observed from a comparison between tables 1 and 2. Since agriculture has not been able to absorb increased labour force there has been large migration from rural to urban areas. However, agriculture still employs the highest number of labour (63.2%). Informal labour force dominates the labour market. The Labour Force Survey, 1995/96 showed that about 40.1% were unpaid family workers. 17.9% were day labour, 12.4% were regularly employed workers and 29.6% were self-employed. More than one-third of the employed persons both at the national and rural levels is underemployed. The underemployment is much higher in the female population than in the male population. Of the unpaid family workers 77.9% are female. Table 1 Labour Force, Employment and Unemployment During 1972 to 1997 (million person-years)
Labour Force 21.38 Employment Domestic 13.09 Foreign --Total 13.09 Unemployment Unemployment Rate (%) 8.29 38.78

Year 1972/73

1977/78 1979/80 1984/85 1989/90 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97

24.10 25.29 29.50 34.80 40.47 41.47 42.97

16.04 16.09 18.97 22.82 26.88 28.18 29.62

0.05 0.05 0.32 0.43 0.95 1.14 1.34

16.09 16.14 19.29 23.25 27.83 29.32 30.96

8.01 9.15 10.21 11.55 12.64 12.38 12.01

33.24 36.18 34.61 33.19 31.23 29.69 27.95

Source The Fifth Five Year Plan for 1997-2002 Table 2 Under-employed person aged 10 years and over in 1995-96 (million) Category
Employed Person* Employed Person (<35 hrs/week) Unemployment Rate**

Bangladesh BS M F
54.6 18.9 34.6 33.8 4.2 12.4 20.8 14.7 70.7

BS
9.7 7.0 2.7

Urban M
1.9 0.7 1.2

F
19.6 10.0 44.4

BS
44.8 26.7 18.1

Rural M
17.0 3.5 13.5

F
37.9 13.1 74.6

(BS=Both Sex, M=Male, F=Female) Source BBS, Labour Force Survey 1995-96.
Notes * one who was either working one or more hours for pay or profit or working without pay in a family farm or enterprise or organisation during the reference period or found not working but had a job or business from which he/she was temporarily absent during the reference period. ** number of persons who worked less than 35 hours per week as percentage of the total number of employed population.

Unemployment among the educated youths is one of the major problems in Bangladesh. The unemployment rate for the population having secondary school certificate level education and above is significantly higher than those with a lower level of education. The unemployment rate for educated women is higher compared to that for the male population. Bangladesh, like other developing countries, suffers from large-scale disguised unemployment in the sense that, even with unchanged techniques of agriculture a large part of the population engaged in agriculture could be removed without reducing agricultural output. Beyond agriculture, disguised unemployment is also existing in large industries, offices and organisations, particularly in the

public sector. Circumstances causing involuntary unemployment are numerous. But they can be conveniently grouped under the heads such as seasonal variations, industrial and technological change, labour market imbalance, business cycles, and lack of complementary resources. The seasonal cropping pattern of agriculture generates a heavy demand for labour during the peak season but keeps substantial labour idle during the slack season. Agricultural labour remains busiest in the months of June and July. The possibility of work-sharing or low intensity of work is unlikely in these months and on the average, 10 hours are worked daily. Employment opportunities for the agricultural labour are moderate during March, April and May and rare in September and October. Besides agriculture, seasonal un- or underemployment prevails in industry and construction sectors also. In retail trade, there are sharp increases in employment during various festival periods and heavy layoffs immediately afterward. In Bangladesh salaried/wage employment in the formal sectors is not big enough to take care of the huge number of unemployed. Employment promotion, especially, creation of self-employment opportunities, continues as the most important functions of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training. The Fifth Five-Year Plan for 1997-2002 had set a target of creating additional employment of 6.35 million persons. Of this, a total of 1,60,000 persons are expected to be engaged in self-employment. Emphasis had been given on training and credit support to women micro entrepreneurs in cottage industries and other traditional and non-traditional sectors including skill development for service industries and other non-farm activities. The private sector and NGOs are also playing a vital role to this end. To meet critical situations, especially in near famine or post disaster periods, the government conducts emergency relief programmers but they are no more distribution of direct relief, or the dole. Such activities have been integrated with Food for Work programmers to provide employment opportunities to large numbers of idle workers and to involve them in efforts towards improvements of infrastructure.