Unemployment in Bangladesh increases by 170,000 in a year

The number of unemployed people in the country's total labour force in the July-September quarter was 2.6 million

The unemployment rate in the July-September quarter of the current fiscal year has increased “a little” to 4.49 percent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, or BBS.

The agency's “Quarterly Labour Force Survey”, released on Sunday, said the country's unemployment rate was 4.07 percent in the same quarter of 2023. That means the unemployed labour force has increased by 0.42 percentage points.

According to the BBS, the number of people without work in the first three months of the current fiscal year was over 2.6 million compared to 2.4 million in the same period a year ago. That is, the number of unemployed in the country has increased by 170,000 in a year.

The BBS was used to prepare the unemployment and labour force survey as per the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians, or ICLS. This is the first time this has been done under the 19th ICLS.

Because of the difference in the considerations of employment in these two methods, the number of unemployment also varies.

According to the 13th ICLS, a person is considered employed if the individual does at least 1 hour of productive work in the last 7 days in return for salary, wages, profit, or for own consumption of food.

On the other hand, those who have worked for at least 1 hour in the last 7 days on salary, wages, or profit will be considered employed under the 19th ICLS. The production of products for own consumption is not taken into account in this case.

According to the survey, more than 56.5 million people are newly employed in the country's labour force. Of them, 2.6 million people were unemployed, accounting for 4.49 percent.

In the same quarter of 2023, the labour force was higher; unemployment was also lower.

At that time, the labour force was 58.66 million and 2.4 million people [4.07 percent] were unemployed among them.

Alongside the new method, the BBS also calculated unemployment using the old method. It showed that in the July-September quarter, the number of unemployed people was 2.5 million and 67.5 million were employed.

Those who are not employed, nor considered unemployed, are considered to be a population outside the labour force.

This includes students, the sick, the elderly, those unable to work, retirees, and housewives who are not employed or unwilling to be employed.