Dhaka – The UN Migration Agency (IOM) is partnering with Bangladesh’s largest online job portal Bdjobs.com Ltd. to provide the latest information to job seekers on overseas employment opportunities and connect them directly with employers. The two agencies on Sunday (11/11) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a new online portal that expects to go live within six months.

In Bangladesh, every year nearly two million people join the working age population, while only 200,000 jobs are created locally. This phenomenon, coupled with pull factors – including peer influence, expectations of higher income and the perceived social status attached to living abroad – often lead working age people to migrate for jobs overseas.

But prospective migrants frequently find themselves misled by middlemen when it comes to signing to contracts and confronting working and living conditions different from what they were promised in some destination countries. Some job seekers even become victims of human trafficking and end up facing extreme exploitation and abuse.

IOM has been working closely with the Government of Bangladesh, recruiting agencies as well as with public and private stakeholders to reduce the vulnerability of job-seeking migrants during their journeys. For a decade, IOM has promoted a rights-based approach and integration of migration into Bangladesh’s national development agenda.

“Overseas opportunities, job requirements and the terms and conditions of their employment are the bare minimum that migrants should know to make conscious choices,” said IOM Bangladesh Chief of Mission Giorgi Gigauri. “It is their basic right and it is very important that stakeholders go beyond business as usual and play a responsible role in protecting migrant workers.”

“Credible information platforms need to become more accessible, not only to potential migrants, but also migrants living abroad and those willing to re-migrate,” he added.

“The changing market dynamics are driving us to focus more on technical jobs, which are filled by a large number of migrant workers,” said Bdjobs.com CEO AKM Fahim Mashroor. “We believe this initiative will definitely help migrant workers to get more accurate and timely job information for safe and regular migration.”

The new online job portal, which will be developed with support from the IOM Development Fund, will have some unique features particularly designed for Bangladeshi migrant workers.

The android app will offer Bangla/English language preferences and will allow jobseekers to create profiles with information required by the Bangladesh Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) – the agency responsible for authorizing work permits for Bangladeshi migrants.

Profiles will also be integrated with a search engine through which government, foreign missions, employers and recruiting agencies will be able to identify suitable candidates.

For more information please contact Chowdhury Asif Mahmud Bin Harun at IOM Bangladesh, Email: mbinharun@iom.int, Tel. +880 1755509476.