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Unemployment problems of bangladesh
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Rising unemployment and declining share of the poorer populace in national income are two major challenges for the country in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), says a government report.
“Appropriate interventions are required so that benefits of economic growth reach the poorest quintile,” observes the report prepared by Planning Commission on progress towards MDGs.
In 1992, the poor’s share in national income was 6.5 percent. But it dropped to 5.3 percent in 2005, marking a decline of 18.46 percent in 13 years.
A steady annual growth around 5 percent on average in the 1990s and 6 percent in the 2000s helped the country to draw nearer to implementation of many of the MDGs, eight goals that the United Nations member states have pledged to accomplish by the year 2015.
Halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, ensuring universal access to primary education, eliminating gender disparities, reducing child mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio, and combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases are among the targets officially adopted in 2000.
One of the shortcomings in Bangladesh’s efforts to attain MDGs is failure to make growth process sufficiently pro-poor, says the report, adding that depleting share of the poorer segments of the society in national income and consumption shows that the poor are not benefiting from the growth.
It said youth unemployment has shot up to 13 percent in 2003 from 3 percent in 1990. Nearly 64 percent of those unemployed have secondary or post secondary and higher education.
According to draft Labour Force Survey 2005-06 of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, unemployment rose by one lakh or 5 percent between 2002-03 and 2005-06.
“The challenge is clearly to create