Saudi will take more 5 lakh Bangladeshi manpower

Saudi Arabia expressed its willingness to recruit some 5 lakh additional manpower from Bangladesh to meet its demand for workers in various sectors.

‘We want to recruit 0.5 million more workforce from Bangladesh,’ Saudi Minister for Labour Dr Mofarrej Al-Hoqubani promised when he met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Royal Conference Palace during her visit to Saudi Arabia.

PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters on Monday after the cabinet meeting.

The Saudi Minister said the Bangladeshis are working here with a good reputation while there are also some 42,000 female domestic helps working in the KSA.

Bangladeshi workers started working in Saudi Arabia in 1976 and the KSA has now over 2 million Bangladeshis, making it the largest Bangladeshi Diaspora.

Bangladesh is one of the largest labour suppliers to Saudi Arabia with it obtaining the biggest share in 2007 - 23.50 percent of the 1.5 million Saudi Arabia visas for its workers issued in the year.

Both the Prime Minister and the Saudi Labour Minister agreed to stamp out the influence of middlemen in recruiting manpower to cut the recruitment cost.

Dr Mofarrej Al-Hoqubani said, ‘Apart from recruiting workers, our goal is to open recruitment of doctors, teachers and engineers from Bangladesh.’

About sending female domestic helps from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia, Hasina said her government has organised a short-term training course for this house helps and this training would be turned into a long-term one.

She mentioned that the government also introduced online registration of workers to make the recruitment process easier.