2nd Issue

Inside this issue

Welcome to the second issue of Economic Intelligence Bangladesh-- EIB. Here we examine the emerging skills on demand on both national and international scales. We focus on skills prioritised by local corporates, their level of satisfaction with current recruits' skills, and the gap between the industry and the academia.
Additionally, we analyse the skills that Bangladeshi job-seekers need to learn to perform better in host countries, and overcome hurdles they face there.

Skills for the Future in Bangladesh

For this issue’s flagship feature, our Research Team has surveyed 27 leading companies across various sectors in Bangladesh to know their hiring priorities and sought-after skills over the past two years, and their anticipated demand for skills in next couple of years.
The survey reveals that Bangladesh’s corporate sector prioritises leadership and teamwork the most in their search for soft-skills.
This contrasts the global corporate trend that attaches the highest priority to skills like creative and analytical thinking, as revealed in a 2023 survey of the World Economic Forum.
Industries in Bangladesh also emphasise the value of soft skills such as resilience, curiosity and motivation in employees to move forward.
Though technological literacy emerges as one of the universally essential skills, things like Artificial Intelligence and big data have not yet appeared in the top-5 priorities of Bangladesh’s corporate sector.
Industries here choose to wait for such high-tech skills until their next phase of recruitments.
Employers in Bangladesh have highlighted, as our survey finds, a glaring shortage of problem-solving skills among young graduates seeking corporate jobs. On the brighter side, English Language skills, whatever required for the specific job, have been readily available in new recruits, and thus received less emphasis in recruitment efforts.
Only 37% respondents have been found “satisfied” over the performance of new recruits, which tells why 93% of them conduct in-house training programs to groom new entrants for the assigned jobs. Three in every four respondents have favoured strengthening industry-academia partnerships to bridge the skills gap, as a significant 41% reveal their difficulty in finding the skills they need.

What Online Job Posting Says?

Research firm Datasense reveals major shifts in demand both in skilled and less-skilled occupations examining online job postings.

Looking For Jobs Abroad? These Are What You Need To Know

This section gives insights into the jobs and skills that are in high demand in major sourcing countries of our remittance, along with new potential markets like the UK and Italy. Exploring avenues for investment in skills development in partnership between the government and the private sector, we delve into strategies for preparing our workforce for better-paying overseas jobs.

We have more:

Cost of Living

Here we analyse the inflation trends of selected countries to offer a comparative perspective on the cost of living and economic conditions worldwide.

Big Markets Still Not Optimistic

It looks into consumer and business confidence indices in our key export markets such as EU and USA.

Bangladesh Macroeconomic Snapshot

Here we provide our readers with an overview of our economy with insights gleaned from the latest available data.

Which skills industries wanted the most

Teamwork and leadership skills

93%

Communication skills

78%

Technological literacy

78%

Critical thinking & problem-solving

74%

Analytical skills

56%

Software skills

48%

Professional networking skills

44%

Creative thinking

44%

English language skills

41%

AI and big data

26%

Share of companies that identified these skills as high priority during the last 2 years of their hiring practices

Teamwork and leadership keys to past success

93%

of surveyed companies gave the highest priority to Teamwork and leadership skills in the last 2 years of their hiring practices

Communication skills, Technological literacy, and Critical thinking & problem-solving skills also proved to be pillars of success for most high-value companies.

Which skills industries wanted the least

AI and big data

37%

Professional networking skills

22%

English language skills

11%

Analytical skills

Critical thinking & problem-solving

Software skills

Technological literacy

Creative thinking

Communication skills

Teamwork and leadership skills

Share of companies that identified these skills as low priority during the last 2 years of their hiring practices

Artificial Intelligence not yet prevalent in hiring preferences

37%

of surveyed companies gave the lowest priority to AI and Big Data skills in the last 2 years of their hiring practices

Professional networking skills were also considered less pressing in the evolving job market.

Meanwhile, English language skills were reported to be readily available in the skilled workforce, thus requiring minimal effort in recruitment searches.

Which skills were hardest to get

Critical thinking & problem-solving

59%

Creative thinking

52%

AI and big data

48%

Teamwork and leadership skills

41%

Analytical skills

33%

Technological literacy

26%

Professional networking skills

19%

Software skills

19%

Communication skills

15%

English language skills

Share of companies that identified these skills as hardest to get

Skill acquisition hurdles

59%

of surveyed companies reported that the hardest skill to acquire in the last 2 years of their hiring practices was Critical thinking & problem-solving skills, followed closely by Creative thinking

These were followed by Creative thinking, AI and big data, and Teamwork and leadership skills – the most prioritized in companies past skill hunt.

While critical thinking is necessary for evaluating information to make good judgments, creative thinking focuses on generating innovative ideas and possible solutions.

how satisfied companies are with skill of new recruits

Very dissatisfied

15%

Dissatisfied

48%

Neutral

37%

Satisfied

Very satisfied

Employees barely meeting the mark

37%

of surveyed companies were satisfied with the skills they received from new recruits

Companies overall were neither Very Dissatisfied nor Very Satisfied about the new recruits’ skillsets.

However, 15% expressed dissatisfaction, while the highest share (48%) reported neutral levels of fulfillment, highlighting the need for upskilling within the organization or through external means.

Are companies willing to hire foreign workers if local candidates do not satisfy their needs?

15%

Never

63%

Not often

22%

Quite often

Always

Harnessing local skills

63%

of surveyed companies reported that they chose not to hire foreign workers often, even if local candidates did not meet their requirements

22% of companies who were willing to hire foreign workers, quite often belonged to sectors that require a large and diverse workforce, namely the RMG, FMCG, Hospitality and Electronics industries.

What could be done to improve skills

Strengthen industry-academia partnerships

74%

Develop on-the-job mentorship programs

70%

Organise affordable in-house training

70%

Conduct skill gap assessments at entry-level

63%

Offer skill-based incentives and bonuses

33%

Offer language-training programs

30%

Utilise government skill development programs

26%

Partner with local NGOs and training providers

19%

More collaboration required between Industry and Academia

74%

of surveyed companies believe that strengthening industry-academia partnerships is the best way to improve workers’ skills

On-the-job mentorship programs and affordable in-house training are the next most chosen initiatives to strengthen the skill-base in the existing and future workforce.

63% of the surveyed companies also believe conducting skill gap assessments at entry-level is crucial as candidates quite often did not have the skills the company needed.

Does education match companies’ skill needs?

Share of companies conducting in-house tests to enhance skills

Top 10 skills rising in demand in bangladesh

Share of surveyed companies that will assign high priority to the following skills in the next 2 years

Teamwork and leadership skills

93%

Analytical
skills

89%

Technological
literacy

81%

Critical thinking & problem-solving

70%

Creative
thinking

63%

Communication skills

59%

English
language skills

52%

AI and
big data

52%

Software
skills

48%

Professional
networking skills

41%

According to the Skills for the Future survey, bringing together the perspective of 27 leading companies - collectively employing around 3.9 lakh workers, across 14 industry clusters and across Dhaka and Chattogram

Top 10 skills
on the rise globally

Share of surveyed companies which consider the following skills to be increasing in importance most rapidly between 2023 and 2027

Creative
thinking

73%

Analytical
thinking

72%

Technological
literacy

68%

Curiosity and
lifelong learning

67%

Resilience, flexibility and agility

66%

Systems
thinking

60%

AI and
big data

60%

Motivation and
self-awareness

59%

Talent
management

56%

Service orientation and customer service

55%

According to the World Economic Forum's The Future of Jobs report, bringing together the perspective of 803 companies - collectively employing more than 11.3 million workers across 27 industry clusters and 45 economies from all world regions

Global leaders favour

creative thinking,

local leaders prioritise

teamwork

93%

of surveyed companies gave the highest priority to
Teamwork and leadership skills

Not only a priority of the past, teamwork and leadership skills are the most demanded by companies even into the future from the Bangladeshi workforce.

Analytical skills, Technological literacy, and Critical thinking & problem-solving skills are also front-runners in the future of skills demanded by top-level professionals, reflecting the increasingly digitalised workplace of the world.

Notably, Communication skills held the second largest share in the list of skills prioritised in the last 2 years, but according to top managers, hold less weight moving forward.

Instead, Creative thinking has emerged as one of the leading priorities, aligning with the trend seen from global leaders who are emphasising soft skills over hard skills as technology evolves and restructures the workplace.

English language skills have also seen a slight increase in priority in comparison to past hiring practices, reflecting the growing importance of global communication demands and maintaining a competitive edge in the globalized economy.

73%

of surveyed companies consider Creative thinking to
be the skill most rapidly increasing in importance

On the global stage, creativity plays a pivotal role in the generation of innovative ideas and solutions for business problems, as well as global challenges and demands.

Analytical thinking and technological literacy are universally recognized as essential trends, aligning with the growing demand for proficiency in the technologically advanced workplaces of the future.

Soft skills and long-term productivity-enhancing qualities, such as curiosity, resilience, flexibility, agility, motivation, and self-awareness, are less commonly sought after by top-level managers in Bangladesh.

However, some respondents noted that having these qualities would be beneficial for achieving organizational goals.

Local and global business leaders place similar emphasis on AI and big data, recognizing the ongoing evolution and specialized expertise needed for their effective application.

Shift in job demand

What online job posting says?

Ananya Raihan, Asif Ayon and Sanjoy Kumar from DataSense

For understanding shift in demands in skills and emerging sectors with requirement for emerging occupations, it is important to track monthly shift in demand and supply. This is a mammoth task and is not possible by one single institution. This piece attempted to understand some month wise trends in shift in demand both in skilled and less skilled occupation, using data available with the largest job portal in Bangladesh bdjobs.com. The disclaimer is that compared to the number of jobs created every month, the data from bdjobs is just a fraction. Also, we have to keep in mind that less skilled job re not always published through online portal, many companies prefer to hire HR firms for requirement, they may not publish advertisement. The platform like LinkedIn is being also for recruitment. Thus, the purpose of this exercise is to generate interest and debate among both supply and demand side of employment market and policy makers on methodology of aggregate employment data and make them available for economic actors for taking informed decision.

Job Demand in 2023: Major Trends from Online Job Posting

In 2023 (January – December 2023) a total of 72,756 jobs were offered through online portals. Figure 1 shows the zig-zag pattern in month-wise job posting., with highest job post in August 2023 (7,179) and lowest in April (4,140). However, the trend in the job posts is almost flat, with an average job posting of 6,063.

An attempt was made to identify the top 10 job offering sector and their monthly trends in their demand. The top sector is garments and textiles with a total of 10,647. Number 10 sector among top 10 is pharmaceuticals sector with total job offers through online platform 2,269. It is important to notice that NGO/Development sector job offers stood second, with 9,397 job offers. The Information and Communication technology job stood third with job offers of 7,305. The detailed job offers by ISIC rev 4 category is presented in bar graph.

While this analysis was looking for emerging sectors’ job offer trend, there are 3 sectors which are mentionable: Agro-based industry (1,647), Electronic and Consumer Durables (1,167), eCommerce/F-commerce (888).

It was noticed that, while it is possible to map job offer data by economic sector following ISIC rev 4 classification, it is not possible to map them by BSCO 202 skills categories, which is developed in line with ISCO-08 of ILO. Only 9050 job offerings were possible to track by skills /occupation classification is shown in the table.

Number of Less skilled Jobs
Posted in Online Portal, 2023

	Category	Number of Job Offering
1	Waiter/Waitress	1026
2	Sales Representative (SR)	838
3	Security Guard	729
4	Mechanic/Technician	584
5	Other Special Skilled Jobs	587
6	Welder	586
7	Sewing machine operator	515
8	Pathologist/ Lab Assistant	500
9	Driver	497
10	Showroom Assistant/Salesman	480
11	Nurse	446
12	Peon	399
13	Imam/ Khatib/ Muezzin	362
14	Mason/ Construction worker	269
15	Housekeeper	212
16	Fire Safety/ Firefighter	179
17	Plumber/Pipe fitting	178
18	Graphic Designer	101
19	Gym/ Fitness Trainer	97
20	Electrician/Electronics Technician	87
21	Garments technician/Machine operator	65
22	Delivery Man	51
23	Interpreter	50
24	CAD Operator	46
25	Data Entry/Computer Operator	46
26	Carpenter	36
27	Gardener	22
28	Beautician/ Salon	22
29	Chef/Cook	23
30	Cleaner	17
		9050

End Note

It is obvious that such fragmented presentation would spark debate about whether these trends truly reflect the actual scenario. That is the intention of this exercise, to spark debate. It is expected that this debate would bring all the relevant actors together to design a system for pulling data from all possible sources and organize them in a way that the complete picture is possible to present.

This piece is produced under collaboration of DataSense-TBS
Data source: BDjobs and Skills Jobs

SECTORS/JOBS IN DEMAND BY BANGLADESH’S TOP SOURCES OF REMITTANCE

UAE, Saudi Arabia

United States

Italy

United Kingdom

Malaysia

PROGRESS AND AREAS OF DEVELOPMENT

Bangladesh sent 54,186 professionals including doctors, nurses, engineers, IT specialists in 2023, compared to 3,640 in 2022

70 fully operational technical training centres under BMET, but number of trainees less than 10% of total labour migrants.

Middle East hosts 5 million workers, but no Arabic language courses available (for professional proficiency)

Local language proficiency can lead to better performance, leading to increased earnings – as observed in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and India

Mandatory language test now required for labour migration to South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong

Insights by TBS Research Team based on information from International Labour Organization, USA Facts, European Employment Services, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Malaysian Investment Development Authority