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Finance adviser disagrees on rise in unemployment

Employment growth halved since 2003: Survey

Star Business Report
Finance Adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam yesterday disagreed with a view that unemployment had increased in Bangladesh.
The Labour Force Survey Report 2005-06 prepared by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics found employment growth has halved since 2003.
The annual employment growth was 2.2 percent during 2003-2006, compared to 4.4 percent in 2000-2003, the report revealed, but underemployment rate has increased to 24.5 percent in 2006 from 16.6 percent in 2000.
The outcome of the survey that was presented at a seminar in Dhaka said labour force grew 3.21 percent a year, while the employment growth rate was 3.14 percent between 1995-96 and 2005-06.
“The annual growth in manufacturing sector was 7.8 percent, which was higher than the labour force growth,” Azizul told reporters after a seminar on “Promoting employment-intensive growth in Bangladesh: Policy analysis of the manufacturing and services sectors” at a city hotel.
He said: “Manufacturing sector is absorbing more workforce. I don't think unem-
ployment has increased."
However, the adviser admitted that the caretaker government was doing its best to boost the stagnant investment and economic activities.
He said an accommodative monetary policy has been adopted instead of contractionary policy, measures taken to reduce the bank spread and incentives are being given to exporters and importers.
Unemployment is one of the main problems of the country. Still about 40 percent of the population live below poverty line. Many are ultrapoor, because they do not have jobs. Even if they get jobs, they have very low income implying that they are under-employed.
Quazi Shahabuddin, director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), chaired the seminar organised jointly by BIDS and International Labour Organisation, Dhaka office.
Labour and Employment Secretary Mahfuzul Haque also spoke at the seminar where economists, policy makers and NGO activists attended.
Nazneen Ahmed and Mohammad Yunus of BIDS presented the research findings on Bangladesh employ-
ment situation.
As per the findings, the share of manufacturing sector in total employment has marked a marginal rise over the past decade from 10 percent in 1995-96 to 11 percent in 2005-06.
Zaid Bakht, a research director of BIDS, said the growth in employment is not to an extent as it was supposed to be.
"The growth should be much more than what was actually happened,” he told reporters.
Nazneen Ahmed said the readymade garment sector has created some employment, but other sectors have’ failed to generate expected jobs.
The finance adviser said employment is a major instrument for poverty alleviation. But growth of output has to be increased for that, he suggested.
He pointed to the fact that technological progress is declining capital and labour ratio in different industries.
Rizwanul Islam, special adviser on growth, employment and poverty reduction, employment sector of ILO, Geneva introduced the seminar topic, while Ingrid Christensen, in-charge, ILO, Dhaka gave welcome address.