BOESL plans to send workers to Canada

For the first time, Bangladesh expects to send workers to Canada that ensures high salaries and rights of workers at low service charges, said officials of Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Ltd (BOESL), a state-owned recruiting agency.

The BOESL has already prepared a draft contract with a Canadian outsourcing company that has been attested by the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka recently, they added.

When the contract is approved, the BOESL will be able to start sending workers of various technical professions, including plumbers, truck drivers, electricians and welders, within the next few months, said an official of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment.

A worker has to pay only 4,000 Canadian dollars or Tk 2 to 2.5 lakh to go to Canada. After his entry of Canada he can earn around Tk 1.5 to 2 lakh every month, he pointed out.

There are opportunities for the Bangladeshi workers to earn even more than that as they usually work after the scheduled working hours, he added requesting not to be named.

The way the Canadian company approached Bangladesh shows that it has huge demands for the technical professionals, he said and adding, 'We can earn huge remittance, when we start sending workers as the salary is quite high over there. We can also train up our large number of unemployed youths to maintain the standard.'

The Canadian company, however, sets condition that the BOESL has to bring back the workers at its own cost if they fail in medical tests or interviews conducted in the receiving country (Canada), which incurs severe loss for the recruiting agency.

Mahbubur Rahman, Director General of BOESL, said BOESL proposed the conducting of the final interviews of workers and their medical tests by medical centers authorised by them in Bangladesh by Canadian employers. In this way there will be no case of return of workers.

For this reason, we are now negotiating with the Canadian company in this regard," he said.

The Canadian employers did not finalise the date for taking interviews of the workers and their medical tests. Meanwhile, what certificates would be required for them is not fixed till now, he added.

If necessary, BOESL in association with the vocational training centres run by the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET), could provide further training to the aspirant workers required by the Canadian employers, another official of BOESL said.

"Though there is no official assessment on the actual condition of the labour market in Canada, it is learnt from various sources that Canada as well as other European countries are facing severe lack of workers of technical professions," he added.

The lack of workers is made even worse by the fact that fewer Canadians than ever are joining the domestic labour force. The three provinces, the centre of Canada's economic engine, hope to use foreign workers to fill up the shortage, said an expatriate expert.