Bangladesh is a small developing country beset with a lot of problems. Unemployment problem is one of the biggest national problems of the country. A large portion of our educated manpower is deprived of job opportunity. The problem creates several other problems and affects our poor socioeconomic structure very badly.
According to a study of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the rate of growth of unemployment in Bangladesh was 1.9% in the decade of the nineties. But the rate is currently(2011) 3.7%. The country is twelfth among the top twenty countries in the world where unemployment is rising. At present, the number of unemployed people in Bangladesh is more than 30 million. The dreadful matter is that, the number of the unemployed people will be doubled by 2015.
The main fact that is responsible for the problem is uncontrolled population explosion of our country. Every year hundreds of thousands student are coming out from our colleges and universities. But it is a very difficult task for the government to meet the job-demand of these large populations. It is not possible for the government to ensure employment for the educated, let alone the half and non-educated. Every year, some 2.7 million young persons are becoming eligible for jobs whereas only about 0.7 million of them are getting employments.
Political instability is an important reason of this problem. In fact, from the birth of the country, it has been facing political crisis badly. As a result, it has not been possible for any government to take long term massive steps to create employments. To speak the truth, the two major political parties are not united in the national interests of the country.
Our defective education system is also responsible for this problem. It depends on memorization to a large extent. The other reasons of unemployment problem of our country are lack of adequate industries, poor economic structure, illiteracy, corruption, quota-system, nepotism etc.
It is not possible to eradicate unemployment problem entirely from the country. But it can be reduced to a large extent by following proper steps. First of all, population explosion must be controlled anyhow. More mills and factories should be built and private sectors must be encouraged regarding this. The politicians has greater role to play. They must have to give priority to the national interests. The government can provide free training to the young people in newer sectors to make them self-employed. They can also provide unconditional loans to the trained people. According to experts, there is no alternative to self-employment to solve unemployment problem in our country. Corruption and nepotism must be banned in govt. employment. In the education sector, vocational education should be made mandatory for all.
Hopefully, the leading NGO's of our country such as Grameen Bank, Asha, Proshika, PKSF, are playing positive roles to remove unemployment problem from the country. In the meantime, they have employed thousands of unemployed people of the country. If our Government also try to solve the problem with due sincerity, the day is not very far from us when we will be able to build a solvent and self-reliant better Bangladesh.
Unemployment is common every where in the world. No country in the world is completely is free form it. So, Bangladesh is not exception from it. Rather, this problem is very serious in our country. Many people are badly suffering from the curse of unemployment.
