Published in The Financial Express on Monday, 23 March 2015.
Workforce size falls
BBS survey worries experts, invokes call for remedies
Jasim Uddin Haroon
Labour-force participation in productive work in the country has declined to 56.8 per cent, 2.5 percentage point down from the 2010 count.
Such a decline practically in the workforce-by a contrast with the growing size of the population-worries policy researchers.
They call for government action to find out and address the reasons, as it isn’t seen as a good sign for the economy.
Labour-force participation rate is the ratio between the labour force and the overall size of their cohorts (national population of the same age range).
The figure of slimming labour force emerged clear from the latest survey on the country’s labour scenario, concluded in 2013.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country’s national statistical organisation, conducted the labour-force survey-2013.
Extensive and representative samples numbering 36,000 across the country were used to come to the conclusion on the labour situation.
The bureau is expected to release the data officially sometime in April as it is now under scanning by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Under this latest trend, some 1.3 million people had entered the labour market every year during the period under study. It was 1.8 million in the previous survey of 2010.
If labour-force participation drops, it means either working population has dropped or a significant number of people have migrated for overseas jobs. Or they remained outside the labour force.
However, as per the survey, both male and female labour-force participation rates have dropped.
People who work on labour force said this fall in the labour participation might be a definition-related problem.
On the other hand, some argue that a large number of young people have joined the overseas labour force during the period under review.
They suggest the women participation, found low at 33 per cent, should be enhanced.
Also, a fall in population since the 1990s might be among the reasons behind the drop in labour participation on the home front.
Abdul Hye Mondol, a consultant at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said: “Probably, this is a definition-related problem. BBS, as per the ILO suggestion, has been trying to identify a section of youths not involved with education or employment either.”
“A section of youths remained outside labour and education both for the time being. They were counted in the survey, and, I think, this is technical and definition-related problem,” said Mr Mondol, who has worked on the issue for long.
Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow at the country’s private think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said drop in labour participation is not good news by any means.
He said the actual reason would be known after publication of full report on the findings.
“In my view, women’s participation rate must be raised and the female labour force must join the mainstream economic activity,” said the policy researcher.
Mr Khan suggests the government should identify the reasons behind the fall and take measures in this respect.
BBS has been conducting Labour Force Survey (LFS) since 1980 at different intervals. Conducting LFS every 4-5 years is a core activity of the bureau.