DHAKA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 pandemic delivered a hammer blow to Bangladeshis seeking overseas employment last year.
Fresh employment fell by 482,528 between January and December last year, according to the Bangladeshi government's Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), the largest decrease in about a decade.
This was the biggest decrease since 2002 when 225,256 Bangladeshis found overseas employment.
BMET figures show that the number of Bangladeshis heading overseas to work plummeted by 68.92 percent last year.
"217,631 Bangladeshis found jobs abroad in 2020, down from 700,159 during 2019," the BMET data showed.
Of the total overseas employment in 2020, the BMET showed more than two-thirds of Bangladeshi workers secured jobs in the Middle East countries.
According to the official data, 161,726 found jobs in Saudi Arabia, 21,164 in Oman, 3,608 in Qatar, 3,769 in Jordan and 1,743 in Kuwait.
Md Shamsul Alam, director general of the BMET, told Xinhua Sunday that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a drastic impact on traditional overseas job markets for Bangladeshis.
"Fresh employment opportunities have dried up in major job markets last year following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic," he said, adding cancellation of numerous flights following travel restrictions in parts of the world for months also hampered overseas employment last year.
He predicted bleak future for overseas employment if the pandemic devastation continues with no signs of abatement in its second wave of infections during the winter here as well.
Since March 8, the virus has spread to nearly every Bangladeshi district and the total number rose to 5,22,453 with 7,781 deaths so far.
Bangladeshi Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam had earlier told journalists that "some 141,036 workers have returned home to Bangladesh following the outbreaks of the pandemic in the major hosting countries in Middle East, Asia and elsewhere in the world."
According to the official, about 10 million Bangladeshis have currently been living and working abroad, keeping inflows of remittances still unaffected.
Bangladesh's overall remittance inflow rose by 37.59 percent year on year to nearly 13 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2020-21 fiscal year (July 2020-June 2021), the latest central bank data showed. Enditem
