Bangladesh relaxes age eligibility for public sector jobs after coronavirus lockdown

The government has allowed those who turned 30 on Mar 25 this year amid the coronavirus shutdown to apply for public sector jobs, saving thousands of youths from ageing out of eligibility.

The public administration ministry has asked all other ministries and divisions to specify the maximum age limit for people who applied by Mar 25 when they send out job circulars, barring the Bangladesh Civil Service or BCS.

The directorates, departments and agencies under the ministries and divisions, and autonomous bodies that could not post the job advertisements due to the pandemic will publish the adverts now with Mar 25 as the date to count the applicants' age, an order said on Thursday.

The Public Service Commission or PSC has not issued recruitment notice during the 66-day general holiday since Mar 26 designed to stem the spread of COVID-19. It last advertised jobs in December, 2019.

But the PSC has issued several non-cadre recruitment notices after the lockdown was lifted on May 30. In all those job postings, the maximum age limit was set as 30.

Many jobseekers have long been asking for raising the age bar to access government jobs citing academic session logjam among other issues.

Now they believe the option will not do them as much good as expected given the huge setbacks they face due to the pandemic.

They argue that the crisis has hurt everyone and so the government should relax job age rules for everyone.