The structural transformation during the past decade had moved mostly unskilled labour from rural and peri-urban areas to textiles and garments, but these unskilled workers could acquire few skills during the process, underlines the book before going on to add that low-productivity in its industrial development and competitiveness is a continuing challenge for Bangladesh compared to other neighbouring countries like India and Sri Lanka.
“To place the country into the accelerated growth path, it needs to be transformed from low-productivity and low-wage development to high-productivity and high-growth models. The country also needs to diversify its economic bases…,” maintains the book
Bangladesh is undoubtedly blessed with abundant of manpower, which is predominantly responsible for fuelling its labour-intensive readymade garment industry, considered the lifeline of the country’s economy. But what about the skillset of the workforce? In today’s age where well-educated and skilled human capital is vital towards achieving economic growth and development, where does Bangladesh — the apparel manufacturing powerhouse which is next only to China in terms of global exports — stand with respect to the same.
If observations made by the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) are something to go by, things don’t look very encouraging, one would agree. As per the ADB, low-level education and skill of the majority of the workforce in Bangladesh still remains a major constraint towards labour productivity and it poses a challenge on achieving high economic growth.
The ADB made the observation in a book titled Anticipating and Preparing for Emerging Skills and Jobs published by its headquarters in Manila recently, which also added that in order to sustain and accelerate the economic growth, Bangladesh needs to diversify its economic bases and move up the value chain in the global market.
The book said Bangladesh’s high growth is often highlighted by its booming readymade garment (RMG) industry, the share of which in total exports surged from mere 40 per cent in 1990 to 80 per cent by 2015.
Much of its success is owed to low-cost production and surplus of low-skilled labour, the book highlights adding the RMG industrial growth underpinned the job expansion in the manufacturing sector, especially for women.
For information, it is estimated that women employment grew by 4.4 per cent annually due to the demand from urban industrial employment, which is well over twice the rate of growth in the overall working-age population. However, according to the book, the majority of the labour force still engaged in agriculture and allied sectors is 41 per cent, while about 20 per cent are employed in the industry sector and 39 per cent in the services sector.
“To place the country into the accelerated growth path, it needs to be transformed from low-productivity and low-wage development to high-productivity and high-growth models. The country also needs to diversify its economic bases…,” maintains the book while adding that to achieve this vision, the growing workforce needs to be equipped with education and skills that can improve their productivity and meet the emerging skill needs, especially in the face of industry 4.0, requiring increasingly higher levels of technical and cognitive skills.
The Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system in Bangladesh as of the early 2010s was fragmented and inadequate in both quality and quantity, said the ADB publication.
It said more than half of the labour force have at most primary education or no education at all; only about one-third have completed secondary education, and less than 10 per cent have a higher secondary education. In addition, less than 4.0 per cent of the working-age population has received any technical or vocational training.
With weak linkages between the TVET system and industries, most training courses could not supply the skills demanded by the job market, it said.
“Preparing the new entrants to the job market every year for making them a productive workforce with quality education and skills poses formidable challenges in the existing TVET system,” maintains the book, adding, yet, a large young workforce-if well equipped with productive skills-is vital to drive the country’s future economic growth and capitalise on the demographic dividend.
It thus suggested increasing the demand for higher-level cognitive and technical skills, combined with soft skills, and added that the workforce should be equipped with strong foundation competencies including digital skills.
Strong foundational skills will enable them to learn new skills effectively and adapt to the changing work environment, the book says while predicting the routine jobs are likely to be absorbed into automation, while non-routine jobs requiring critical thinking and creativity are likely to increase in the coming years.
It may be mentioned here that it is not that the Bangladesh Government is not aware of the impact of the automation. As a matter of fact, it is rather looking at implementing skill-development policy and investment in technical, vocational and other training options, keeping the same in consideration.
Increased use of labour-saving technologies is likely to take over around 10 lakh jobs in the readymade garment sector in the country by 2025 so the Government must begin taking measures for job creation in other potential sectors while also adopt necessary policy reforms for invigorating the process of export diversification and focus on a more forceful skill-development policy directed towards women with adequate investment in technical, vocational and other training options as women are far more likely than men to be retrenched from their jobs owing to the automation, maintained the draft 8th Plan.
Speaking at a virtual consultation meeting on the sector-based chapters of the 8th Plan recently, member of the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission, Dr Shamsul Alam said technology-based education will get importance in the Government’s new plan to make youths competent to survive in the competitive job market tackling challenges of automation.
It may be mentioned here that women are at the forefront of Bangladesh’s apparel manufacturing sector but the new era of the fourth industrial revolution which is categorised by not just a technological innovation but a fusion of technologies has posed new challenges for all. In the given context a clear understanding of automation, use of modern technologies and presence of skilled human resources are very important.
According to the BGMEA President Rubana Huq, around a quarter of garment manufacturing activities in Bangladesh will be automated by 2023, up from 8 per cent now. So, workers, especially females, need to be skilled and reskilled so that they can continue to do this important business, she said while calling upon the different agencies to disseminate education for skilling the enormous number of female workers as they have been tremendously contributing to the industry.
Given the existing situation and as has been pointed out by various studies and reports, upskilling of the workforce keeping with the changing times is of paramount importance if Bangladesh is to continue its economic growth unabated and the apparel sector is able to maintain its global dominance in exports.
