Government to send 10 million skilled workers abroad in next 5 years: Minister

The government has laid out an ambitious plan to send 10 million skilled Bangladeshi workers abroad over the next five years, Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury announced today. To meet this target, the government has significantly scaled up specialized training programs nationwide to transform the country’s workforce into skilled human resources.

The minister shared this layout during the budget session of the National Parliament, in response to a query from Naogaon-5 lawmaker Jahidul Islam Dholu on Thursday (July 9). The parliamentary session was chaired by Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad.

Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury stated that a comprehensive action plan has been undertaken in line with the government's election manifesto. The strategy focuses on expanding and retaining international labor markets, upgrading worker skills, and enhancing language proficiency to prepare candidates for high-value jobs abroad.

Currently, 110 training institutions—consisting of 104 Technical Training Centers (TTCs) and 6 Institutes of Marine Technology operating under the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare—are providing skill development training across 55 employment-oriented short and long-term courses, the minister informed the house.

Answering another question from Barishal-3 Member of Parliament Zainul Abedin, the minister outlined several measures implemented to ensure safe, regular, and orderly migration, reduce migration costs, and curb the fraudulent activities of middlemen.

He highlighted that the launch of the Overseas Employment Platform (OEP) has streamlined the entire migration pipeline. The platform digitizes training enrollment, monitoring, certification, job demand and visa verification, as well as the issuance of emigration clearances. This end-to-end automation makes the migration management system more transparent and accountable, effectively minimizing the influence of middlemen and unauthorized brokers.

Furthermore, Ariful Haque Choudhury revealed that the government has enacted the 'Overseas Employment and Migrants (Recruiting Agent License and Sub-Agent Registration and Conduct) Rules, 2025' to bring local brokers and sub-agents under a strict legal framework. Migration coordination committees have also been formed at the district and upazila levels to monitor migration activities at the grassroots level.