Thinking Aloud: Volume VII, Issue 11: April 2021

The April 2021 issue of Thinking Aloud focuses on “COVID-19 fallout on labour market in Bangladesh”. The first page article titled “Strategies to address COVID-19 induced labour market challenges in Bangladesh” highlighted that COVID-19 deeply affected the labour market in Bangladesh. It intensified some of the existing challenges and brought a new set of problems. A large number of people encountered either employment or income losses and are also experiencing intense job insecurity and uncertainty. However, the labour market in Bangladesh has been confronting several challenges even before COVID-19. The article proposes three-prone strategies to counter the COVID-19 induced labour market challenges in Bangladesh – to undertake a comprehensive approach linking policies and programmes for economic and social recoveries, to introduce new social safety net programmes targeting the labour market, and to form a Labour and Employment Commission to assess the current unprecedented situation and suggest necessary measures. The second and third pages of this issue present the article titled “Impact of COVID-19 on Labour Market and Migration: Summary findings of SANEM’s Survey in January-February 2021”. The article presented the results from SANEM’s nationwide household survey https://bes.org/valium-online/ which was conducted during January-February 2021, including 2,845 non-migrants, 230 internal migrants and 273 international migrants from 500 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) distributed across eight divisions. The article draws attention to the fact that, despite signs of recovery of the economy, the pace of recovery has not been uniform across sectors, occupations or even locations and depending on the type of activity, while some have already been recovered, some are still struggling to regain the pre-COVID level of employment and earnings. Therefore, after a year of the pandemic, it is now crucial to re-assess the employment scenario of people at distinctive sectors of the economy and to re-design, if necessary, the incentive programs accordingly. In the medium to long term, the article concluded that a holistic approach towards decentralized job creation while designing large scale employment opportunities at the district level is crucial. The fourth page draws attention to the events that occurred in the month of March along with the upcoming 2nd SANEM International Development Conference (SIDC) 2021 on “Post-COVID Recovery: Contexts and Priorities” to be held on June 17-19, 2021.