Yesterday, all flights from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia were temporarily suspended following repeated missile and drone attacks by Houthi rebels on Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
As a result, numerous expatriate workers faced severe hardship at airports. They are extremely anxious because they have been unable to reach their workplaces on time. Undoubtedly, this situation represents a major blow to Bangladesh’s manpower exports to the Middle East.
In fact, owing to the recent armed conflicts in the Middle East and various political and security-related uncertainties, the labour market in this region has been gradually shrinking for Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Bank’s report, Monthly Economic Trends, September 2026, confirms this trend. According to the published report, 71,084 workers went abroad in July 2026. In August, this number fell to 62,929.
In other words, the number of workers travelling abroad declined by 11.47 per cent in a single month. During the first two months of the current 2026–27 fiscal year, the number of workers going abroad decreased by 76,946, or 36.47 per cent, compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year.
It is worth noting that a downward trend in manpower exports had already been observed before this. During the April–June quarter of the 2025–26 fiscal year, 160,283 workers went abroad.
In the preceding quarter, the figure stood at 205,384. During the same period of the previous year, 247,719 workers had gone abroad. Thus, statistics covering several different periods reveal a declining trend in the deployment of workers overseas.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the major labour markets in the Middle East, provides a case in point. The visas of approximately 4,500 workers who had returned to Bangladesh from the UAE to spend their holidays have been automatically cancelled.
Consequently, they are no longer able to return to their workplaces. The recruitment of new workers and the issuance of visas are also being severely disrupted in other countries. Needless to say, this has pushed the remittance sector, one of the principal driving forces of our economy, towards a crisis. These problems need to be resolved swiftly.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain profitable and dynamic labour markets for Bangladeshi workers not only in the Middle East but also in Europe, America and other parts of the world.
Many workers who have obtained work permits for various European countries are unable to join their workplaces within the stipulated time. For instance, as Romania and many other European countries do not have embassies in Bangladesh, complications involving Indian visas are preventing Bangladeshi workers and students from travelling to Delhi for interviews.
Consequently, visa applications are frequently left pending or suspended, and applicants miss their deadlines. Meanwhile, employment opportunities in the United States and the Far Eastern countries are gradually narrowing because of restrictive immigration policies and stringent screening procedures.
Although remittances sent by expatriate Bangladeshis are temporarily showing positive growth, the alarming decline in the number of newly deployed workers will make it increasingly difficult to sustain remittance inflows over the long term.
In this challenging situation, the government should immediately give serious consideration to the problems affecting overseas labour markets and take appropriate measures.
First, the diplomatic efforts of Bangladeshi embassies abroad must be strengthened so that visas cancelled unjustly can be reinstated and the interests of expatriate workers can be protected.
Second, bilateral discussions must be accelerated to facilitate the relocation of consular services of European countries to Dhaka or to establish alternative arrangements for conducting interviews.
Third, an emergency assistance and rehabilitation fund should be established for affected expatriates. Above all, instead of relying solely on traditional labour markets in the Middle East, Bangladesh must place greater emphasis on developing a skilled workforce.
New labour markets must be explored in regions such as Eastern Europe, East Asia and Africa. Effective and long-term strategies must be adopted to increase manpower exports.