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A survey found that 34.2 per cent of wage earners and 37.3 per cent of self-employed people who witnessed income losses during the COVID-19 outbreak are yet to get back to their pre-COVID income level.
The South Asian Network on Economic Modeling on Wednesday at a webinar released findings of the survey conducted during January and February of 2021 on 3,348 households, including 2,845 non-migrants households, across the country.
The report titled ‘COVID-19 impact on employment and migration’ said that 80 per cent of self-employed people surveyed reported a decline in production, profits or sales in March-December 2020 and 52.5 per cent said that their business activities had temporarily stopped.
Sixty-two per cent of wage earners reported a decline in their incomes in the period while 8 per cent of workers are till now jobless, the report said.
More than 16 per cent of female workers till now jobless against over 7 per cent of male workers.
Around 78 per cent of self-employed workers, mostly in hotel, restaurant, healthcare and social work, also reported a decline in incomes amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to the survey, the highest wage earners, 79.6 per cent, in the transportation sector reported a decline in their incomes followed by 73.6 per cent in construction sector, 68.9 per cent in apparel manufacturing, 68.2 per cent in agriculture, forestry and fishery, 57.8 per cent in non-RMG manufacturing and 57 per cent in wholesale and retail trade.
The worst affected workers are from Sylhet, Barishal and Mymensingh divisions, it said.
Around 28 per cent of workers and over 43 per cent of self-employed whose income declined, however, managed to recover their incomes by this time.
Income of 38 per cent of wage earners and that of 19.5 per cent of self-employed workers remained unchanged in the period.
The survey found that more workers employed in urban regions lost their jobs compared with workers employed in rural regions.
In Dhaka, 61 per cent of wage earners reported a decline in their earnings while 84.2 per cent self-employed workers reported a decrease in production, profits or sales and 58.6 per cent reported halted business activities.
More than 31 per cent of wage earners and around 42 per cent of self-employed workers based in Dhaka are yet to recover their income losses whereas a little over 30 per cent of wage earners and 42.5 per cent of self-employed workers witnessed a recovery in their incomes.
Out of the 230 internal migrants included in the survey, 49 per cent were forced to return to their villages due to job loss, no payment and decreased salary while 14 per cent lost their jobs in March-December of 2020.
Almost everyone, however, returned to the city at the time of survey, the survey report said.
Among the 273 international migrant workers surveyed, 20 per cent of those workers lost their jobs amid the pandemic and 5 per cent returned to Bangladesh.
The number of job losses was proportionately higher for workers employed in Middle Eastern and East Asian countries.
Among aspiring migrant workers, 90 per cent stated that they want to migrate either within the country or internationally for better work opportunities.
However, for those who intended to migrate abroad, problems related to visa processing and increased charges of recruiting agencies acted as major obstacles, according to the findings.
SANEM research director Sayema Haque Bidisha presented the findings of the survey.
Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur said that there was a need to address the problems faced by people who have entered the workforce in a time of crisis.
Unless there is a recovery in private sector investment, creation of employment opportunities for fresh graduates and new workers will be challenging, he said.
Appropriate policies to facilitate the migration of workers abroad must be prioritised for a sustained increase in remittance earnings, he said.
SANEM executive director Selim Raihan, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit founding chair Tasneem Siddiqui, International Labour Organisation Bangladesh country director Tuomo Poutiainen, Centre for Policy Dialogue research director Khondaker Golam Moazzem, among others, spoke at the webinar.
