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Real wages in major sectors decline during 71-90

Unemployment to reach 30 pc by 2000 unless growth picks up

By Staff Correspondent
Underemployment in Bangladesh may rise and exceed the equivalent of 30 per cent unemployment by 2000 if the real GDP growth rate fails to accelerate and continues to grow at the historical rate of around four per cent a yej> cautions a World Bank report.
The current underemployment rate in the country is estimated at 43 per cent, which is equivalent to having a quarter of the labour force unemployed.
According to the report, real agricultural wages declined by about 1.5 per cent a year while the manufacturing wa'ges fell by three per cent during the 1971-90 period.
This trend, however, appears to be changing and data from the 1990s indicate some increase in real wages. But if
the GDP growth rate does not pick up the wages would con,; tinue to fall, it warns.
"Much higher growth rates are needed to expand employment opportunities fast enough to reduce undereYn-ployment and push wages
The report, a supplementary of the "Wprld Bank Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating World," was released worldwide yesterday. The report looks into the possible impact on the workers of the global changes towards an increasingly market-driven economy.
In a pre release press briefing at the Bank's resident mission on Tuesday last, Hafez Ghanem, one of the core members of the team which prepared the report, said that
the dramatic changes in which goods, services, ideas and people are moving around much faster in an integrated world, have raised fears among workers in both the developing and industrial countries.
The briefing was also attended by Pierre Landell Mills, chief of the Bank's resident mission.
The report explores how-the changes affect workers and how government's should deal with those fears. But Ghanem, a Bank economist whose last posting was in Dhaka, added that the workers should not be scared. "Globalization provides a great deal of opportunities and workers all over can benefit from it.” The regional perspective report on "fobs, poverty, and working conditions in South Asia" paints a grim picture of the region consisting of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which together have 430 million workers or about a fifth (17.5 per cent) of the world's labour force.
In terms of per capita consumption, South Asia is the poorest region in the world. The report notes that in 1990, almost 59 per cent of the region's population consumed less than 30 US dollars a month in terms of purchasing power parity, while this share was 53 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 28 per cent in Latin America and 15 per cent in East Asia.
Growth, at 4.1 p . cent, in South Asia betweei i >60 90 has been slower than m any other developing region except Africa, it said.
In the early 1990s, invest ments ranged from about 12 per cent in Bangladesh to 23 per cent in Sri Lanka and India, compared to 34 per cent in Malaysia and 40 per cent in Thailand. The average South Asian worker uses only 2,513 dollars of capital, compared with a developing country average of 13,0(X) dollars and an industrial country average of 150,000 dollars, the report points out.
Most workers in South Asia will benefit from global ization of the world economy
following the Uruguay Round through increased international migration, foreign trade and capital flows, but a few, . operating in inefficient pro-
tected sectors, will lose out, it says.
The report, however, cautions that the workers in South Asia's booming Garments industry, who ave benefited in the past from OECD quotas on imports, will have to deal with tougher competition.
For example, as China and Vietnam become more effec tive exporters of garments, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could lose market share, and jobs in those sectors would shrink, it says "To remain competitive. South Asian ex porters will have to lower
costs and raise productivity through skill upgrading, moi> investment, improved technology, and backward link ages."
The report also points out some 'serious' misgivings about labour unions in South Asia. They represent the in tereats of a very small proportion of relatively better off workers and they are also over-politicised and frag-mepted, it says.
Industrial relations in South Asia's public enter prises need to be restructured and depoliticised," the report says It also suggests that the region a governments need to improve their performance as employers of civil servants who provide public goods, such as health and education.