Matching skills with the jobs: The only way to sustain growth

Bangladesh's economy has been on a fast-paced journey in recent years, except of course during the ongoing pandemic. With high growth, the country has achieved several positive economic and social milestones. However, the economy is performing below its full potential. One of the reasons behind this is our inability to fully use the talent and capability of the country's human resources. Not only has the economy been unable to create adequate jobs for its labour force, but the employed people are also not being able to give their best and earn more due to the poor quality of education and lack of appropriate skills. Therefore, the lack of access to jobs could hamper further progress of the country, since human resource is key for any economy. Hence, the materialisation of Bangladesh's aspiration to become a developed country by 2041 will also depend on maximising the potential of its people.

Among Bangladesh's many strengths, the availability of a large young population is an important one. Despite tremendous population pressure on a small area of land, Bangladesh is in a unique position to reap from its "demographic dividend". This is a situation when the size of the working age population is larger than its number of dependents. Bangladesh has a large number of working-age people who can contribute to increased income, more savings, higher productivity and faster economic growth. This gives Bangladesh a competitive edge among other countries which are aging fast. But it has been projected that the demographic dividend will diminish by 2040. So, a post-demographic dividend situation will not be easy. It has been suggested that because of a large share of the aging population, many advanced countries are experiencing economic slowdowns.