Worker outflow to Saudi Arabia climbs but remittance falls

Category: Business

The movement of migrant laborers from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia has experienced an astonishing fourfold increase over the past three years. However, despite this surge in migration, the earnings through remittances from these workers have consistently dwindled, as revealed by official statistics. To delve into the numbers, in 2020, a total of 161,726 Bangladeshis secured employment opportunities in the Gulf region. This figure substantially escalated to 457,227 in 2021 and further soared to 612,418 in 2022, as meticulously documented by the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training (BMET). Contrastingly, the remittance revenues emanating from Saudi Arabia, where a significant chunk of these migrant workers are employed, amounted to $5.7 billion during the 2020-21 timeframe. This financial influx subsequently contracted to $4.5 billion in the subsequent fiscal year, 2021-22, and experienced a further decline to $3.7 billion in 2022-23, according to meticulous data sourced from the Bangladesh Bank.