Keeping age in mind, youth should be the driving force of the economy. Economists call the high number of young people in the population the demographic dividend. Nearly 50 per cent of Bangladesh's population is young, but 39 per cent of them are 'idle'. This is hindering Bangladesh from taking advantage of this dividend.
In such a situation, the question arises that what is the percentage of unemployment in Bangladesh? According to the labor force survey conducted by the BBS at the end of 2023, the number of unemployed stood at 2.35 million (23.5 lakh) at the end of the October-December quarter. This was 40,000 more than the previous year. It was told that the unemployment rate in Bangladesh is 3.3 percent.
There are questions about these figures because the definition used for unemployment is not realistic. But the thing to note is that there is no increase in the employment rate in Bangladesh year after year. According to government statistics, at least 2 million (20 lakh) people enter the job market every year. Of them, approximately 1.3 million to 1.4 million (13 lakh to 14 lakh) are employed within the country. The rest go abroad for employment. Therefore, the number of unemployed persons has remained between 2.4 million to 2.8 billion (24 lakh to 28 lakh) for two decades. This stagnation proves that new job seekers are not benefiting from the economic growth that is being promoted.
The result of this is that a large section of youth is considering leaving the country. This was revealed in a survey conducted by BRAC University and Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center in 2023. 42 percent of the educated youth of the country said about going abroad (Banik Barta, 17 November 2023). According to the 2022 BBS Labor Survey, the number of educated unemployed (with a bachelor's degree) was about 800,000, which is 12 percent. A recent survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) revealed that 28 percent of students remained unemployed even three years after passing out from colleges under the National University (Prothom Alo, 24 March 2024). The condition of those who graduate from other universities is also not very good.