The country is still facing inflationary pressure, the organisation said
Bangladesh national agency reports fall in unemployment
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics says joblessness rate fell to 3.6 percent of the eligible labour force in 2022 from 4.2 percent in 2017
Published : 29 March 2023, 09:46 PM
Updated : 29 March 2023, 09:46 PM
The national statistics agency has reported a decrease in the joblessness rate, citing a rise in employment in the agriculture sector in the post-COVID era.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent of the eligible labour force in 2022 from 4.2 percent in 2017, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The BBS published a summary of the Labour Force Survey at an event in Dhaka on Wednesday, amid economists’ concern about joblessness due to the ripple effects of the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The number of unemployed people decreased by 70,000 to 2.63 million in the latest survey from 2.7 million in the previous study five years ago.
“The survey was conducted after the COVID era. A significant portion of the labour force in the industry and services sectors became jobless at that time due to lockdowns and other reasons,” Planning Minister MA Mannan said at the programme.
“They started working in poultry and other agricultural sectors later, leading to a fall in the unemployment rate and a rise in the labour force in the agricultural sector,” he added.
The latest survey found Bangladesh has a 73.4 million-strong eligible labour force, including 25.9 million women.
The BBS said the unemployment rate rose to 3.56 percent from 3.1 percent among men above 15 years old.
The rate fell drastically among women from 6.7 percent to 3.56 percent, according to the survey.
The BBS said it followed the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation for the survey conducted throughout 2022 by dividing the year into four quarters. It collected data from 123,264 households, or 30,816 each quarter.
According to the ILO, an unemployed person is a person aged 15 or over without a job during a given week; available to start a job within the next two weeks; actively having sought employment at some time during the last four weeks or having already found a job that starts within the next three months.
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