Employment Fell by 0.55 Percent in Q2

A recent study by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) showed that employment in Bangladesh decreased by 0.55% in the second quarter of the year compared to the first quarter.

On Sunday, July 30, the BBS released the most recent edition of its Quarterly Labour Force Survey, which revealed a 0.39 million decrease in work chances between April and June of this year. Additionally, it revealed that in the second quarter of the year, 70.71 million people in the nation were employed, down from 71.10 million in the first quarter.

The BBS data also revealed that at the same time, the jobless rate decreased from 3.51% to 3.41%.

Bangladesh's labor force decreased by 0.48 million from 73.69 million in Q1 to 73.21 million in Q2. The BBS calculates the labor force as the total of all working-age individuals who are employed and unemployed in accordance with ILO regulations.

According to ILO regulations, BBS classifies people as employees if they have performed economic labor for at least an hour during the previous seven days. However, those who haven't sought for employment in the last 30 days but haven't found even a single hour of work a week are considered to be jobless.

The population outside the labor force is made up of people who are not seeking for employment. In the past three months, there were fewer of these persons who were not working—about 0.93 million less.

Participation in the labor force dropped from 61.37% to 60.74% over this time.

Male labor force participation decreased from 81.17% to 80.86%, while female labor force participation decreased from 41.95% to 41.06%.