Advancing safe, fair, and affordable labour migration
When Shafiqul boarded a plane to Saudi Arabia last year, he carried two things: a small bag of clothes and a debt his family had never imagined. To secure a modest construction job, he borrowed nearly $5,000—around Tk 5 lakh—demanded by brokers in his village.
His plan was simple: work hard, send money home, and repay the loan quickly. That did not happen. Earning $300-350 a month, close to the average wage for a low-skilled migrant worker, Shafiqul spent almost his entire first year abroad repaying debt. His migration journey did not move him forward; it barely brought him back to zero debt. His story is not an exception. It is all too common.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Labour migration remains one of Bangladesh's strongest engines of employment and growth. More than 1.3 crore Bangladeshi workers support economies across the Gulf, Southeast Asia, and beyond. In 2024, they sent home an estimated $26.9 billion, around six percent of the national GDP.
Yet this success masks a troubling reality. Bangladeshi workers pay some of the highest recruitment fees in the world. The Labour Force Survey 2024 shows that the average cost of migration exceeds $3,500 (Tk 462,000), which takes roughly ten months of work to recover.
Heavy debt forces workers to accept lower wages, unsafe conditions, and excessive working hours, while limiting their ability to negotiate or complain. Families back home face financial strain, and many returnees without savings feel compelled to migrate again through riskier channels, being trapped in a cycle of debt-driven migration.
Excessive recruitment fees are not only exploitative for the workers, but they also affect Bangladesh's competitiveness in the labour markets it depends on. Bangladeshi migrants to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Malaysia pay two to three times more than Indian or Nepali workers for the same jobs. This disparity is well known to employers and governments abroad and affects Bangladesh's reputation. Workers remain under pressure to earn quickly, contributing to disputes, frequent employer changes, overstays, and irregular work. These outcomes are not choices; they are consequences of debt.
Global expectations are also shifting. As human rights and due diligence laws tighten in major markets, companies are increasingly accountable not just for working conditions, but for fair recruitment practices, pushing employers to source workers from countries with transparent, regulated recruitment systems.
High recruitment fees cannot be explained by demand alone. Many countries with large underemployed populations do not face costs at this scale. Fees rise when oversight is weak, unethical practices go unchecked, intermediaries operate without accountability, and enforcement fails across migration corridors.
The Labour Reform Commission has rightly prioritised recruitment fees. While steps such as digital verification and stronger welfare support are welcome, they must be matched with bolder action, including tighter regulation of recruiters, effective complaints mechanisms, and clear liability for excessive fees.
Overseas employment remains critical to easing Bangladesh's job crisis. Reducing recruitment fees must therefore become a national priority, alongside investing in workers' skills. Migration should not begin with debt and desperation. To protect workers' dignity and secure future labour market opportunities, Bangladesh must confront one of the greatest barriers to safe and sustainable migration: the cost of migration itself.
Max Tuñón is country director at International Labour Organization (ILO) Country Office for Bangladesh.
Lance Bonneau is chief of mission at International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Bangladesh.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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