Author: * K.Ranju Rangan
1.1 Introduction
This article examines an essential dimension of globalisation: labour migration between emerging economies and skill development roles, which has not gained sufficient reportage. Migration of skilled workers from developed countries is a persistent trend, and governments need to respond to and benefit from this migration in both sending and receiving countries. Skilled migration is often portrayed to have unreasonably detrimental implications for countries of origin. Recent analysis and foreign policy experience, however, challenge this hypothesis and offer a more nuanced picture. Skilled migration can be successful when adequately planned between countries of origin and destination. More remains to be accomplished to address the issue of unemployment and facilitate fast migration through the establishment of skills and competencies in the country of origin.
Migration from Bangladesh has risen annually, but the ratio of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled employees so migrated is still inadequate. However, GCC market studies hold skilled Bangladeshi migration below 10% (if domestic female migrants are deemed skilled employees) compared to 90% of unskilled workers. Even several of those skilled workers are not proficient in the requirements of the GCC labour market, rather demarcated as semi-skilled workers who need extensive job-based training for at least six months to a year before working independently. Skills, knowledge and creativity are core drivers of economic development and social change in any nation, and those countries with higher education and skills are more effective in addressing the demands and opportunities of the global economy. In line with this, Bangladesh’s government has developed a comprehensive national skills development strategy that will guide skills development programmes and encourage greater integration of all skills training components and stakeholders. Skills Development Policy would contribute to other national fiscal, work and social policies being enforced so that Bangladesh will achieve its middle-income level goal by 2021.
Developing skills depends on a diverse range of players, including the private sector, non-profit entities, NGOs, and civil society; as well as a significant number of government ministries delivering skills-based training. Bangladesh’s Skills Development Policy is also a significant effort to promote coordination and skills delivery in Bangladesh to strengthen the country as a whole. This approach continues to broaden and draw on other key government programmes such as Education Policy 2009, Non-Formal Education Policy 2006, Youth Policy 2003, National Skills Policy 2008, and NSDC Action Plan 2008. This Skills Growth Plan outlines the vision and roadmap for skill development across the coming years as it outlines key commitments and reforms that the government would implement in partnership with industry, workers, and civil society. This national policy would be followed by a revised and more detailed NSDC Action Plan, identifying clear responsibilities and commitments for all partners and establishing concrete objectives for action over five years.
While limited, statistical evidence suggests that the skills imparted by most of the TVET system are not what the market needs. Unfortunately, due to lack of tracer research, this detail is scanty. In one tracer study, 47 per cent of formal TVET graduates reported being unemployed when surveyed at least two years after graduation (World Bank 2007). Many of the rest continued their studies, but very few were working. Many who managed to get a job abroad did in a completely different area than they were educated. If these findings are right, TVET can not provide demand skills, whether due to the standard of the education or the essence of the skills imparted.
Research Methodology
The research area focused on Bangladeshi migrants in the GCC construction and hospitality industries. Study excluded woman migrants. Individual country studies were undertaken in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE from February 2020 to September 2020 and developed a comprehensive questionnaire to 10 employers in each country, employing maximum Bangladeshi migrants. Each employer interviewed an average of 60 Bangladeshi migrant employees based on their level of education and job skills and current employment. The appraisal based on informal interviews and supporting documents submitted by employees and employers.
While sparsely available, data were obtained from Bangladesh Statistical Department; huge data was obtained from a few Skill development and recruitment agencies in Bangladesh.
Rational and objective
In Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council ( GCC), skills are a critical asset that can transform individuals, businesses and societies into a dynamic, globalised world (OECD 2015). As part of the change to knowledge-based economies, many GCC countries’ “Vision 2030” initiatives detail proposals to skill the national workforce. The continuing lower oil and energy prices observed in recent years have given more impetus to efforts to diversify their economies and to invest in technology, education and vocational training.
Since the downturn in oil prices and sluggish economic growth in recent years, demand for migrant workers in the GCC has fallen sharply. There are changing political and social winds that are transforming the country, in addition to economic and demographic megatrends. The current political and diplomatic conflicts are impacting economies and labour markets. Although these various complexities create uncertainty, demand for low- and semi-skilled migrant workers in the private sector of the GCC is expected to remain strong in the short term in the labour market. There are multiple mega projects for an increasing GCC population, as well as the needs for infrastructure and services. It isn’t easy to mechanise or nationalised these labour-intensive jobs.
There are many different types of training providers in Bangladesh, including private institutions, government institutions managed by various ministries, as well as local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Approximately 59.3 percent of citizens received training from private institutions, while 22.4 percent received training from government institutions (Table 1). To some extent, the true contribution of government training can be underestimated, as the Office of Manpower, Employment and Training, a major source of government-provided training, focuses on foreign migrant workers. This article focuses on 62.5 percent of privately educated personnel, most of them who are now migrant workers. A thumb law is that any higher labor supply, in essence, would contribute to stronger matching skills resulting in higher productivity. Migrant workers have been seen to contribute significantly to economic development in destination countries. But as far as Bangladeshi migrants are concerned, 98 per cent of qualified workers from the skills development centres work as unskilled workers in the destination countries and have minimal impact on economic development, leading to technical developments in destination countries.
This paper charts, broadly speaking, the current and potential demand for migrant workers in the GCC countries, particularly those from Bangladesh, as they send highest unskilled workers to the GCC, discusses skills development programs in Bangladesh and focuses on how migrants end up paying hefty sums for training and then end up as unskilled workers and debt bonded. It also discusses how skills learning centers in Bangladesh train poor prospective migrants and deceive donors for the funds they pump in. GCC countries have large variations in traditions, economies and labor markets, and lack of country-specific research is a recognized constraint of this study.
Table no 1. Source of Training Received
Source: Calculations using data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. 2015. Labour Force Survey, 2013. Dhaka
Bangladesh Labour Market & Skill Development
Globally, it is estimated that the up-gradation will impact about half of the world’s economy in technology shortly. Evidence abounds that innovations impact employment and skills; however, it is exceedingly difficult to foresee the trajectory of technological change and market scenarios. The only thing that is observable is that the technical skills required for employment are becoming increasingly unpredictable. This poses a specific and significant challenge to the skills development programs, which now need to find ways to be flexible and stay up-to-date with constant changes. Given the importance of technical skills, Bangladeshi society as a whole still has a warped view of skills training and vocational education. Firms are not eager to provide their workers with skills training despite the potential positive returns to such investment in human resources.
Bangladesh is one of the most costly countries in the world for those looking to work abroad – paying a minimum of US$ 4,500(Source: a recruitment agency in Bangladesh recruiting for GCC countries) towards recruitment expenses. Approximately half of migrant workers who rely on brokers experience some form of fraud or harassment. Most of the labor migrants from Bangladesh are unskilled or low-skilled. According to Bangladesh government statistics, of the Migrant work force 2.2 per cent are professional; 32% are skilled; 14 per cent are semi-qualified; 52 per cent are unskilled. The majority of male migrants are working in construction, manufacturing , agriculture, retail and informal business services, such as cleaning, transport or tailoring. Unfortunately, the 32 per cent skilled and 14 per cent semi-qualified workers, as they migrate, are absorbed by the labor market in the GCC countries at the rate of 3 per cent skilled and 2 per cent semi-qualified and the rest unskilled. The new informal recruitment system included informal middlemen, who sometimes make false claims about jobs and salaries, as well as high fees that trap migrant workers in debt bondage. This is seen as one of the reasons for the large difference in skill levels in Bangladesh and the GCC countries.
The Government of Bangladesh has introduced an overseas job development policy due to the high level of unemployment and under-employment pressure on the domestic labour market. However, about 52 percent and 14 percent of migrant workers are unskilled and semi-qualified, respectively. Since the Government wants to raise the number of skilled workers working abroad, more focus has been put on skills development projects. Recognizing these developments, the country has embarked on a significant expansion of its technical and vocational education and training system, including several donor-supported projects to reform and improve the system. The development partners include the European Union ( EU), the ILO, ADB, the Government of Canada, the World Bank, UK Aid and the SDC.
Overemphasis on theoretical knowledge at the cost of practical skills during tertiary education is a source of serious lapses in the technical competence of Bangladeshi workers. In several workplaces, workers must be able to use information technology to fully harness the growth potential of emerging technologies. Employers want technical workers to be technically more qualified than theoretical. Owing to the low standard and significance of primary and secondary education, basic skills – literacy and numeracy – which are the foundation for other high-level technical and job-related technical skills are often insufficient. The informal sector has been ignored much of the time in Bangladesh’s skills development agenda, despite the fact that it accounts for 85% of the country’s total working population. The majority (more than 90 per cent) of the population working in the informal sector are employees with primary education or less. They are still exempt from the programmes for professional development and very few possibilities for training have been made open to them. The productivity of employees in the informal sector, i.e. almost one-sixth of workers working in the formal sector (Asian Development Bank, n.d.), is very low due to poor educational status and negligible training . The staff and employers of the informal sector often lack compliance with legal and regulatory systems and are largely unaware of decent working practices.
International migration raises particular skills problems as the standard of skills of migrant workers has been slow to develop. As far as the composition of expertise is concerned, less skilled employees still make up the largest share. Approximately 86 percent of Bangladeshi migrant workers trained in skills development centres are graded as unskilled or semi-qualified in GCC countries. The shortage of skills training for informal workers has been seriously under-served on the skills growth agenda. The interest of the skills acquisition circle has mostly fled, and few educational programs have been made available to them. Education and training programs in Bangladesh have been slow to establish successful collaborations with industries. The industry is the ultimate user of the expertise and employer of students coming out of the education system. Collaboration with industries is essential for the skills development system to provide quality and meaningful learning experience to students, in particular, to keep up with emerging technologies that are put into use in industries. Migrants are often trained by instructors who have never seen or understood the real technological skills needed in the GCC market. The availability of timely information on the labour market should be improved as a basis for evidence-based preparation for skills growth and for educating training institutions and trainees about work opportunities in critical occupations. Trainees before admission to skill development centres should be subject to a skill test to assess the best skills that can be imparted instead of being required to train in the available slots by skill development centres.
Reaping Demographic Dividend
Owing to a rapidly growing young population (the demographic dividend) and increased labour force participation, labour force growth of 2.81 per cent during 1974-2011 was higher than population growth (1.86 per cent). The labour force, however, is mostly unskilled, and employees (40 per cent) mostly have little to no qualifications. Just 22.8% of the workforce have completed primary school, and only 4.0% have completed technical education. The proportion of TVET students grew from 0.4% in 2001 to 1.8% in 2013 (CAMPE, 2016). The percentage of secondary school students enrolled in skills development programs, which was 11 percent in 2010, is still very low compared to the global average (UNESCO, 2013). Out of one million enrolled students in 6,865 public TVET institutes, about 25 percent of students were girls in 2018, and only 20 percent of the total 51,000 teachers are women. The development of the Bangladesh TVET and Skills sector is supported by a large number of development projects worth over USD 1.5 billion, albeit in a fragmented fashion. Each project, from public and/or private sector and industry bodies, has distinct priorities, approach and target groups. Often, these projects are criticized for overlapping operations and lack of coordination. The Local Consultative Groups for Education (ELCG) and the various working groups within the ELCG are trying to coordinate and update each other on activities and progress, but there are still significant results to be achieved.
Skill Development linked to Zero cost Migration – a Bangladeshi business model
As the international organisations had started publishing enormous evidence to substantiate the cost of migration from Bangladesh is the highest and the least controlled, the government of Bangladesh had come up with a lot of reforms to control the labour market. Considering the vast population of migrants from Bangladesh, remittances are much lower than anticipated. The higher percentage of less-skilled Bangladeshi migrant workers is a factor owing to reduced remittances. The Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBT&A) was implemented to make the skills development framework responsive to current and future business skills needs. This programme would substitute static, conventional, theory-based methods with a versatile framework that prioritises the means of achieving and demonstrating practical skills.
In Bangladesh, there are several types of training courses aimed at meeting need-based employment at home and abroad. Skills certifications are provided from multiple sources. All are qualifications that are more or less acknowledged nationally, but recognition is not quite the same abroad. Those accreditation are not equally recognized in the overseas job market. There is a gap between the training imparted in Bangladesh and the requirements of the overseas employers. Owing to a lack of transparency and coordination, there is no clear example in the skills training field of how the certification awarded by the awarding authority is attributed to other similar certificates awarded by skill development programs of other sending countries.
Many stakeholders in Bangladesh offer professional and vocational training to develop skills. They have curricula, guidelines and certifications that range from one actor to the next. Consequently, the manner in which these organisations function is obviously defined by a lack of teamwork. Indeed the absence of such a coordination system suggests a range of deficiencies related to the availability of appropriate professional and vocational training. The diverse knowledge acquisition and appraisal frameworks used in the countries of origin and destination and the shortage of labour market information structures are a major problem. The bulk of destinations to which workers are migrating do not have widely accessible labour market predictions. There is still a scarcity of knowledge on legal policies in the countries of destination, as well as disparities in labour law information on foreign workers. This paper examines how in spite of spending millions for skill development programs in Bangladesh, the trained workers are still considered as a majority unskilled workers in destination countries. The research could evaluate the immense resources involved in the skills development development programs in Bangladesh and the revenue generated by the owners of the skills development centers are substantiated in Table 2 below.
Table : 2
Source: Two Skill development centers in Bangladesh who are having recruitment licences too and sourcing candidates to GCC Countries.
Workers were inducted for training without undertaking any preliminary test to assess their acquired skills rather than being drawn to offers of employment abroad. These skill development centres continue to charge large sums for their training, despite all payments for their course being funded by external organisations. After training, they are usually assured of ZERO MIGRATION COST. This paper establishes the connection between programmes for skills development and how these centres generate jobs abroad that are expedited at zero cost to migrants. The above table illustrates why modern skill development centres are continuing to facilitate Zero Cost Migration. The growth of professional development centres in recent years has definitely led to hidden gems. Table 3 below illustrates how the skills development cum recruitment facilitates zero migration in the eyes of both employers and the general public. Employers in the destination countries typically pay USD 250 to the RA’s for recruitment with free VISAs and joining tickets. RA’s in turn pays USD 50 towards recruitment charges to intermediaries to source prospective migrants for training. The employer pays the medical and contract certification fees in advance with the implementation of QVC.
Table 3
Source: Two Skill development centers in Bangladesh who are having recruitment licences too and sourcing candidates to GCC Countries.
The worst part of the skill development process is the abuse of the Skills Development Center funds from donors. INGOs and other organizations are funding a great deal to sending countries to develop skills that lead to jobs abroad or within the country. Under the pretext of jobs abroad, Skill Development Centers not only exploiting a large number of development funds but also a host of irregularities that play a decisive role in the highly corrupt Bangladesh skills process. SDC’s not only end up charging workers under different heads for training, but also misleading promises of Safe and Zero cost migration goes along with flyers that attract skill development training. Much of this and even more, goes off the record, and the authorities never try to carry out proper assessments. A primary informant interview with an illegal sub-agent revealed that they are more comfortable sourcing applicants for migration-related skill development programmes rather than for direct migrations, which, while the earnings are greater, requires a lot more commitments to migrant relatives. According to them while the earnings are smaller, they are stable as long as there are funding organisations for skill development programmes.
Without question, there is a significant skill deficit in skill learning programmes. However, these gaps are not the only reason for the big shift in professional migration to unskilled jobs in the countries of destination. In order to explain this gap, this study has gone into the specifics of migrants in the GCC. Of the 152 migrants questioned, 82.5 per cent turned out to be working in trades other than the skills they had acquired in Bangladesh. It has been apparent that the skills development programmes are not consistent with market requirements, nor does the government have any special skills criteria for the countries of destination. Labour market outcomes are still imperfect and are unlikely to maintain a flawless supply-demand equilibrium, which results in a noticeable gap between gained capability levels and existing occupation groups, but the discrepancy between skilled and unskilled suggests a much more dysfunctional condition in the overall skills growth programmes.
Any training centres with a 60 percent theory and 40 percent practical curriculum are tailored to fulfil local industry requirements and less in the GCC Jobs Market. Skills development studies in Nepal, India and Bangladesh after 2014 definitely refute the claims put forward by the Skills Development Centers who claim to train workers according to GCC Construction standards since no GCC countries have mandatory construction site standards except for safety and scaffolding. Each organisation must comply with the construction requirements of its consultants. It is also not easy to get a worker qualified to fulfil the demands of a given GCC labour market. Since being eligible for a particular GCC employer’s qualification and, sadly, not heading to placement, it would still become a disappointment for the prospective migrants on the local sector, since the specific requirements on which he is trained would be of little practical value to any employer on the original country’s labour market. Consider the condition of Mason recruited from Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, a Mason performs all the work of constructing a home, including the wall-building, the plastering and laying tiles. But in GCC countries, Mason is again split into sub-specialities such as Block Mason, who will only build a wall, Tiles Mason, who will only lay down tiles, Finishing Mason, who will only finish, plaster the wall, etc. Once this Mason returns to Bangladesh, he faces a tough time reintegrating into the local labour market, as his long-term experience has been adapted to aspecialised job ability set. More needs to be achieved to reach optimal performance; this is not a difficult task, but takes the right individual to do the training, testing, monitoring and assessment.
Conclusion
Recognizing the contribution of migrants to the economy, Bangladesh needs to analyse patterns and their effects and related policy issues concerning overseas jobs and workers’ remittances, such as
- Resilience as a means of employment for workers, women in particular;
- Training and the development of a skilled workforce;
- Relevant skills demand in major destination countries with the skills of Bangladeshi workers should be matched;
- The related high labour relocation costs for prospective workers;
- Strengthening governance of migration
Receipt of a structured employment contract by a prospective migrant worker prior to departure is a basic element of migration. But if the contract is missing or the contract given prior to departure is supplemented, as is more generally done, by an inferior one promising lower wages, other working conditions, and charging fees, etc., will never be effectively challenged by these migrants in the countries of destination. This is because employers always pose the question of mis-match of skills and get away with their reason for disrespecting the promised services. In the negotiations on bilateral agreements, the avoidance of abuses and fraudulent recruiting and selection activities are sometimes left out. Many prospective workers are trained in skills that are irrelevant to the destination country’s job market and enter a job that is unfamiliar with what they experienced, creating a wide void for exploitation in the destination countries. In 2011, the Government of Bangladesh ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Interests of All Migrant Workers and Representatives of Their Communities. More recently, Bangladesh enacted the Overseas Work and Migrant Welfare Act in 2013, and the guidelines for applying the Overseas Jobs Program are being drafted.
What is lagging in the framework is the successful enforcement and oversight of all these laws. Migrants also bear high migration costs and add to that skill development, which has become a fashion rather than a necessity, even as it has become subsidized, workers still pay for admission and training. Despite all this, these skilled workers from skill development centres are now receiving lower wages in GCC countries and other destinations compared to their peers in the Philippines, India and even Sri Lanka. There is a significant difference between the expertise needed and the skills trained. Absence of consistent data on skilled and qualified workers and skilled returnee migrants re-integrated in the local labour market is also a problem for the government. This data would have been useful for further preparing the skills programme and even for the successful implementation of the different policies implemented by the Government of Bangladesh for the Migrant welfare.
The toughest aspect of the skill development process is the abuse of the Skills Development Centers program Fund. INGOs and other organisations are funding a great deal to send countries to develop skills that contribute to jobs abroad or within the country. Under the pretext of jobs abroad, Skill Development Centers not only exploit a vast number of development funds but also a host of irregularities that play a decisive role in the deeply corrupt Bangladesh skills process. SDC’s not only wind up costing workers under separate heads for imparting training, but also false promises of Safe and Zero cost migration goes along with flyers that attract skill development training. All this and much more, goes off the radar, and the officials never bother to carry out the proper evaluations. To worsen the situation with COVID pandemic taking its toll over all economies around the world resulting in a far lower migration possibility Bangladeshis are left with an opportunity to settle between ripped coastlines or urban slums
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*K. Ranju Rangan, independent researcher and an HR professional from Qatar, is the founder of Exodus Research. In the Gcc countries, he was actively involved in labor migration issues of South-East Asians.