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BANGLADESH being one of the most populous countries of the world, in terms of land-man ratio, faces an ever increasing problem of unemployment and under-employment.
In spite of the fact there has been a stable growth of the GDP between 4.0 and 5.6 per cent for more than last two decades, generation of employment at the micro- level has been far from satisfactory. This has resulted in an ever-increasing migration of unemployed rural labour force to urban areas.
The creation of productive income-earning opportunities to absorb the existing unemployed people and the future labour force remains a formidable task in the context of resource constraint that Bangladesh has been facing since its birth.
During the '90s, the Bangladesh labour force had expanded rapidly with more than 1.0 million people entering the labour market annually. According to the latest labour force survey carried out by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) during 1999-2000, of the total 74 million population ( aged 15 and above), 40.7 million were in the labour force and the rest 33.5 million engaged in household work and study in educational institution at the secondary and tertiary levels. And a small percentage of them were leading a retired life.
A comparison of two surveys conducted by the BBS on the country's labour force in 1995-96 and 1999-2000 reveals that the labour force grew at an annual average rate of 3.2 per cent. In 1995-96, the size of the labour force was 36.1 million which increased to 40.7 million in 1999-2000. The number of male labour force increased by 1.5 million to 32.2 million and female labour force by 3.1 million to 4.5 million between two study periods.
In the urban areas, the volume of labour force increased from 8.3 million to 9.2 million between 1995-96 and 1999-2000 and in rural areas from 27.7 million to 31.5 million. The annual growth rate of the same was 2.7 per cent and 3.4 per cent. During the period, the growth of the female labour force both in urban and rural areas was much higher than their male counterparts.
Two characteristics of the evolution of the labour force -- a rapid growth of urban labour force due to rapid urbanisation and rural-urban migration and persistent low participation of female labour force -- are very important in this context.
There has been little change in the sectoral share in the employment situation with agriculture playing a dominant role as usual, providing employment to more than 50 per cent of the labour force. The expansion of employment opportunities in non-farm areas mostly took place in the services sector, including construction, trade, transport, hotels and restaurants, community and personal services.
The employment scenario in the country is characterised by low and declining level of formal sector employment, low skills and literacy and somewhat overwhelming dominance of self-employed, unpaid family helpers and wage labourers.
The rate of unemployment among the labour force (aged 15 and above) in 1999-2000 was 4.3 per cent. In urban areas, the rate was 5.8 per cent and in rural areas 3.9 per cent. And the rate of under-employment was estimated to be 5.1 per cent --- 3.5 per cent for males and 11.1 for females.
The slow growth of the economy coupled with relatively high rate of population growth, resource constraint, poor governance and, to some extent, corruption have largely been responsible for the persistent high unemployment and under-employment in Bangladesh.
The government, at least, in words and plan documents attaches priority to the problem of unemployment in the country. But the problem is so huge that it is beyond the power of the government alone to resolve it. The government does have a plan to put in place an antipoverty and employment- oriented growth strategy that would help increase income opportunities for the poor. It also intends to make several direct interventions to make the process more employment friendly in the sort-run.
Because of significant importance of the formal sector and its dominance in the overall employment situation in the country, the government as a matter of policy does attach strategic importance to it. However, the informal sector, too, has the potentials to become an engine of productive employment generation.
In addition, the government is trying to promote self-employment opportunities for both educated and uneducated persons. There are a number of programmes both in the farm and non-farm sectors for promoting self-employment. The banks are being encouraged by the government to extend loans at lower interest rates to help the individuals trying to be self-employed. But there are a few problems in such financing mainly provided by the public sector banks that are traditionally very slow to act.
The government leaders do make all high-sounding statements in public highlighting the official projects and plans to create employment opportunities. They also do talk about macro-economic stability quite frequently. But the fact remains that unemployment in the countryside has been on the rise. This has led to an uninterrupted migration of rural labour force to urban areas.
The country's official think-tank has already prepared the final draft of the much-publicised poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) as desired by the 'development partners'. The preliminary draft of PRSP prepared earlier, unfortunately, did not give any mention-worthy attention to the need for strengthening the local government institutions. The solution to the problems of development and unemployment at the micro-level lies in the strong local government (LG) institutions. The existing LG bodies are useless organisations having neither resources nor decision-making power.
Side by side with the government unalloyed support to make LG bodies truly powerful and meaningful, the people do need to make elect really honest and competent people to run their affairs through LG bodies.
The government may prepare volumes of PRSP or anything similar to that but without devolving power to LG bodies the objectives of all high sounding strategies, homegrown or otherwise, would continue to elude everybody.
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