Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) conducted a survey on the restaurant sector in 2021. The objective of the survey was to determine the contribution of the sector to the country's GDP.
According to the survey results, there were 436,274 hotels and restaurants in the country in 2021, which was 58 percent more than in the 2009-10 financial year. Of these, 852 are owned by state-owned companies. The rest were owned by individuals and private companies.
In the last decade, many youth have become entrepreneurs by setting up restaurants. One such youth is Pronil Shamsad Jadid of Dhaka. After graduating with a degree in Business Administration, he did not go looking for a job. Nor did he go abroad with his friends. What he did was that he took money from his family and invested it as capital in a restaurant. He has 11 restaurants in Dhaka under three different brand names. His two restaurants in the drive were closed after the Bailey Road fire.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, Pronil said, “Nobody said that setting up a restaurant would require so many different approvals. All we knew was that a trade license would be required. Now they are 10 or 11 different ones. -Talking about different certificates.” He said, the officers are behaving inhumanely. Now he wonders whether it would have been better if she had left the country and gone abroad.
Due to increased investment, employment in restaurants has doubled. According to the BBS survey, the region comprises approximately 2,072,000 people. A decade ago it was about 900,000. Many women are also joining this field along with their male counterparts. Employees earn approximately 314.29 billion taka (31,429 crore taka) annually from salaries and other allowances. On average, an employee earns Tk 152,000 annually.
Mohammad Ujjal Ghazi was the manager of a restaurant which had recently closed down. His monthly salary was Taka 25,000 and his family lived on this salary. “My job has suddenly become uncertain. I was supposed to get married after Eid, but considering the situation, I have postponed it,” he told Prothom Alo. He said there were 25 employees at the restaurant and they were all in limbo. Right now it is the holy month of Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr is ahead. Everyone is confused about their family.