Bangladesh sends over 10 lakh workers abroad till Nov 30 this year
Overseas employment from Bangladesh maintained a satisfactory position in 2025 as the country sent 1,011,882 workers abroad with jobs from January to November 30, 2025.
Some 1,011,882 Bangladeshi nationals went abroad with jobs in the last 11 months while the figure was over 1,011,969 in 2024. A total of 1,303,453 Bangladeshi nationals went abroad with employment in 2023, according to Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).
BMET sources said a total of 14,461,546 Bangladeshi nationals received overseas employment in different countries of the world from 2004.
It said expatriate Bangladeshis sent US$21,942.76 million in 2023, US$26,890.08 million in 2024 and US$13.03 billion from July to November 30, 2025.
Recruiting agents and migrant worker rights groups said overseas employment faced a setback in some traditional destinations like Malaysia. But identifying new overseas job markets and high demand of Bangladeshi workforce in several countries helped Bangladesh maintain a good position in manpower exports.
Bangladesh has been witnessing a satisfactory trend in remittance inflows since December of last year due to multiple factors, including a narrowing gap between official and informal exchange rates and a crackdown on money laundering, a private bank official said.
He said recent growth in manpower exports has also boosted remittance earnings, as Bangladesh sent 131,053 job seekers abroad in November this year.
According to the latest data from the Bangladesh Bank, during July to November of this fiscal year, remittance inflow stood at $13.03 billion, up from $11.13 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year.
The BMET official said some 670,749 Bangladeshi nationals went to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with jobs, while Qatar received 100,439 overseas job seekers. Apart from this, Singapore received 64,326 Bangladeshi job seekers during the last 11 months.
“We’ve been working to increase number of overseas migrant workers as well as ensure the rights and protection of them,” the official said.
The government explored some new destinations including Russia, Brunei Darussalam and Eastern Europe for the skilled and semi-skilled workers, he added.
Experts suggested the government to increase investment in developing need-based skilled manpower like nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers, as its demand would increase in many countries in future.
The government set up many training centres in different districts along with skill development programmes to create skilful jobseekers. Job seekers usually get various trainings including diploma in ship building engineering, refrigeration and air-conditioning, general mechanics, electrical machine maintenance, auto CAD 2D and 3D, welding (6G), catering, mason, Korean, Arabic, canton, Japanese language and others.
Earlier, the government declared the overseas employment sector as a “thrust sector” with maximum stress upon further expanding job markets for the Bangladeshi job seekers abroad.