Labour migration from Bangladesh became more complex in 2025 due to weak governance, persistent dominance of recruitment syndicates, high migration costs and a rise in unskilled and undocumented migration, said a report on the state of overseas migration.
The Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit launched the report at the National Press Club in Dhaka city on Wednesday when it said that although overall overseas migration increased by 12 per cent in 2025 than the last year, but female migration sharply declined.
In 2025, total 11,30,757 people migrated from Bangladesh, but only 62,317 of them—about 5.5 per cent—were women, the report noted, citing data from the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training.
Women accounted for around 16 per cent of total overseas migration between 2015 and 2019, as female labour migration gradually increased over the previous two and a half decades since 1991, when women workers from Bangladesh began going abroad officially.
RMMRU founding chair and Dhaka University professor Tasneem Siddiqui said that the quality of migration remained a major concern, as the majority of workers continued to migrate in low-skilled categories.
She said that only about 30 per cent of migrants belonged to skilled or professional categories, urging the government to prioritise skills development and impose discipline on the recruitment system.
Tasneem Siddiqui also called for a systematic reduction in the number of recruiting agencies, noting that Bangladesh currently had around 2,600 licensed agencies, many of which were owned by the same families under different names.
Bangladesh currently had the highest number of recruiting agencies in South Asia, while India allowed 192 agencies, Pakistan 464, Nepal 416 and Sri Lanka 248, she mentioned.
‘Political affiliation of recruiting agents must be controlled,’ she said, adding that recruiting licences held by lawmakers should be suspended during their tenure as Member of Parliament to avoid conflict of interest.
Ekushey Padak-winning photographer and Drik managing director Shahidul Alam said that migrant workers were often treated merely as statistics rather than as human beings.
‘We must value migrant workers not as numbers but as people who make enormous sacrifices for the country,’ he said.
The RMMRU in its concern further said that while the government maintained records of outgoing migrant workers, there were significant gaps in providing support to workers facing difficulties abroad, as well as in reintegrating returnee migrants.
The organisation placed 13 recommendations to improve migration governance.
Its recommendations include upgrading the BMET to a full directorate with multiple departments; creating a separate cadre service for the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment; ensuring proper use of the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board fund; allocating at least 1 per cent of the national budget to the migration sector; and modernising training centres to match global labour market demand.
Despite repeated policy commitments, migration destinations remain highly concentrated, with about 90 per cent of migrants going to just five countries, of which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone took in 67 per cent Bangladeshi migrant workers in 2025.
Worker sourcing also remained geographically concentrated, with migrants originating from fewer than a dozen districts including Cumilla, Brahmanbaria, Dhaka, Tangail, Noakhali, Kishoreganj out of the country’s 64 districts.
Having said that granting voting rights to expatriate Bangladeshis was a positive step, Tasneem Siddiqui mentioned that the recent labour agreement between Bangladesh and Japan was another encouraging development.
However, she warned that recruitment rackets, particularly linked to the Malaysian labour market, might become active again if strong regulatory oversight was not ensured.
