Thaindian News

Dhaka, July 16 (IANS) Bangladesh’s overseas job market that fetches high earnings is set to shrink as Mauritian authorities have decided to send back 6,000 workers by the end of the year, citing the global recession.
This will be the second biggest job loss after Malaysia cancelled over 55,000 job visas in March, New Age newspaper said Thursday.

Malaysia had promised to take 300,000 Bangladeshi workers before the recession set in.

Mauritius has asked the Bangladeshis, 4,000 of whom work in clothing factories, to leave by the year-end in a move to protect local jobs in the recession-hit textile sector.

Bangladesh and Mauritius both depend heavily on ready made garment manufacture and exports.

Manpower export is the second highest foreign exchange earner for Bangladesh. But it finds its workers returning home from several places, including the United Arab Emirates.

On an official visit to Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina managed to persuade the Saudi royalty to give preferential treatment to Bangladeshi workers.

Saudi Arabia passed a special law to facilitate their transfer of jobs on the eve of her visit earlier this year.

The Bangladesh government said it was awaiting confirmation of media reports about the impending Mauritian decision.

Meanwhile, Reza Uteem, a Mauritian lawyer defending the interest of the foreign workers, called his government’s decision “irrational” and “in breach of the human right declarations” to which Mauritius is a signatory, reported African News.

Ally Faizal Beegun, Chair of Textile Manufacturers and Allied Workers Union in Mauritius, asked the country’s Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam to consider the humanitarian aspect of the decision, as well as the country’s textile industry’s survival.

“A number of those workers are ready to commit suicide instead of going back home empty handed,” he said, adding that most of them have not even been paid for six months.

About 20,000 foreigners from many countries including China, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka work in the textile and clothing industries of Mauritius, The Daily Star newspaper said.