The State of Bangladesh Labor

Executive Summary

Bangladesh's labor market conceals a structural crisis behind a benign headline. The official unemployment rate of 3.8% masks a three-layer problem: 84.9% informal employment, 20.5% underemployment, and a youth NEET rate of 29.8%, all compounded by a 41.8 percentage-point gender participation gap. The core policy question is not how to reduce unemployment from 3.8%, but how to convert 84.9% informal jobs into productive, protected, formally registered employment. With 4.0 million RMG workers, 13 million Bangladeshis working abroad, and 2.0 million platform workers operating in a regulatory void, Bangladesh faces a once-in-a-generation window to upgrade its workforce before the demographic dividend closes around 2040.

Base case (reforms on current trajectory): labor productivity growth of 3 to 4 percent annually, informal employment declining gradually to around 75% by 2035, female LFPR rising modestly from 38.6% toward 45%.

Risk case (reform stagnation): automation displaces up to 60% of garment jobs within two decades, climate migration floods the urban informal sector, and the youth bulge becomes a source of structural underemployment rather than growth.

The Jobs Paradox: Low Unemployment, High Precarity

Bangladesh reports an official unemployment rate of 3.8%. The number is not wrong, but it is almost meaningless. BBS counts as employed anyone who worked at least one hour in the reference week. The substantive measures tell a different story:

• Underemployment (time-related): 20.5%
• Vulnerable employment (own-account and unpaid family workers): 57.3%
• Informal employment: 84.9%
• Youth NEET rate (15 to 24): 29.8%

These four figures are the actual state of Bangladesh's labor market. Growth has absorbed workers, but into low-productivity, low-protection informal arrangements, not into the formal wage employment that drives sustained income growth and social insurance coverage.

Labor productivity stands at $8,800 per worker (nominal USD, WB WDI 2022), against Vietnam's approximately $20,400 (PPP) in real purchasing-power terms (World Bank SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD, 2022), reflecting both lower capital intensity and the aggregate drag of 84.9% informality. Closing this gap is the central labor market challenge.

Informality: 84.9% Workers Outside the System

At 84.9% of total employment (BBS LFS 2022, ILO harmonized definition), informality in Bangladesh is not a transition phase. It is the structural norm. The formal sector, concentrated in RMG, banking, telecoms, and the public sector, employs a thin minority.

The consequences compound across three channels:

Productivity. Informal enterprises generate roughly one-fifth the value added per worker of formal firms. This is the primary reason Bangladesh's aggregate labor productivity of $8,800 per worker (nominal, WB WDI 2022) trails Vietnam's approximately $20,400 (PPP) on a real purchasing-power basis.

Social protection. With 84.9% of workers outside contributory payroll systems, contributory pensions, health insurance, and unemployment benefits cannot be scaled. Bangladesh's social protection spending at approximately 2.5% of GDP is roughly half Vietnam's level.

Fiscal base. Informality suppresses payroll taxes and social insurance contributions, constraining public investment precisely when the demographic window is open.

Trade union density of 3.0% of formal sector workers reflects the weakness of worker voice. The Labour Act 2006 (amended 2013 and 2018) establishes organizing rights, but registration barriers and EPZ restrictions keep density far below Cambodia's ~60% in garments. Formalization and unionization are mutually reinforcing: neither will advance without the other.

Vietnam reduced informal employment from a peak of approximately 82% (2007) to around 65% by 2023 (Vietnam GSO LFS Q4 2023, incl. agriculture; ILOSTAT 2019: 67.3%) through FDI attraction, simplified business registration, mandatory social insurance tied to enterprise licensing, and strict SEZ compliance. Bangladesh has the same levers; it has not yet pulled them.

Youth: NEET Rate of 29.8% and the Skills Mismatch

Three figures define the youth employment challenge. Youth unemployment (15 to 24) stands at 9.4%. The NEET rate is 29.8%: nearly three in ten young Bangladeshis are outside both work and education. Approximately 2 million new workers enter the labor market annually, a flow the economy must absorb productively.

The NEET population is disproportionately female, reflecting early marriage and care burdens, but also includes a significant cohort of over-credentialed young men who cannot find employment matching their qualifications. Both groups represent wasted human capital.

The skills mismatch is the proximate cause. 45.0% of employers report difficulty filling positions requiring practical technical skills (BIDS 2023), yet the education system graduates hundreds of thousands annually in general arts and social sciences. The TVET system, which could supply industry-ready graduates, absorbs a small fraction of secondary completers and suffers from outdated curricula, poor equipment, and low social prestige. The National Skills Development Authority (NSDA), established in 2018, has not yet achieved systemic scale.

The gig economy absorbs the overflow: 2.0 million platform workers in ride-hailing, delivery, freelance IT, and domestic services (BIDS/IFC 2023). These platforms provide income but no labor protections, no social security accumulation, and no career pathway. Bangladesh has no regulatory framework for platform work. India's Code on Social Security 2020 and the EU Platform Work Directive provide tested models; Bangladesh is the outlier among comparable economies.

International migration provides an additional pressure valve: 13 million Bangladeshis work abroad, primarily in GCC states, Malaysia, and Singapore. Remittances exceed $23 billion annually (Bangladesh Bank). But the migration stock concentrates in low-skill construction and domestic work, with recruitment costs of $3,000 to $5,000 per deployment that workers often finance through debt.

Gender Participation Gap: 41.8 Percentage Points

Female LFPR of 38.6% against male LFPR of 80.4% produces a 41.8 percentage-point gap. This is simultaneously an equity failure and an economic cost. McKinsey Global Institute estimates closing South Asian gender participation gaps could add 10 to 30% to regional GDP over a decade.

The RMG sector is the one area where Bangladesh has made structural progress. The 4.0 million RMG workforce is approximately 60 to 65% women (BGMEA), making garments the primary gateway for women into formal wage employment. Heath and Mobarak (2014) document downstream effects: garment employment delays marriage, raises girls' school enrollment, and shifts household bargaining power.

But concentration in low-wage garment work creates three vulnerabilities. First, the gender wage gap stands at 15.9% (WB 2022, mean hourly earnings), driven by occupational segregation and discriminatory pay practices. Second, automation risk falls disproportionately on these workers: sewing and assembly operations are among the most susceptible to robotic substitution. Third, outside RMG, barriers are structural and unaddressed, including unpaid care burden (women spend roughly five times more hours than men on domestic labor), transport constraints, and near-zero affordable childcare.

Vietnam's female LFPR of 68% is 25 or more percentage points above Bangladesh's 38.6%. The gap reflects socialist-legacy norms and a diversified formal economy. Bangladesh cannot replicate the norms overnight, but it can replicate the policy instruments: public childcare investment, transport safety infrastructure, and anti-discrimination enforcement in hiring.

Child labor at 1.7 million (ILO-UNICEF 2021, ages 5 to 17) concentrates in agriculture, domestic service, and urban informal manufacturing. It persists because household poverty makes child income necessary, reinforcing the case for income support alongside enforcement.

Wages, Productivity, and Working Conditions

The RMG minimum wage of BDT 12,500/month (approximately $104) following the December 2023 revision is among the lowest garment minimum wages globally. Cambodia's garment minimum wage is $200/month; Vietnam's lowest statutory zone (Region IV) approximately $137/month (Decree 74/2024/ND-CP, effective July 2024). BDT 12,500/month does not constitute a living wage in Dhaka when rent, food, utilities, healthcare, and a child's education are accounted for.

Real wages have lagged productivity growth for more than a decade, meaning workers capture a shrinking share of the value they produce. Aggregate labor productivity at $8,800 per worker (nominal USD, WB WDI 2022) is well below Vietnam's approximately $20,400 (PPP) on a real purchasing-power basis, reflecting low capital intensity and the informal sector drag rather than worker effort.

Post-Rana Plaza factory safety has improved materially in export-oriented facilities. The RSC (Remediation Coordination Cell, successor to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety) has conducted over 50,000 inspections. However, approximately 1,200 occupational fatalities occur annually (BILS 2023), concentrated in construction, shipbreaking, and informal manufacturing outside the RSC framework.

The minimum wage revision process is ad hoc and politically driven, producing multi-year gaps that systematically erode real purchasing power before each catch-up adjustment. The predictable result is industrial unrest when workers cannot wait any longer.

Prioritized Policy Recommendations

1. Portable social protection to formalize the informal sector.

Design a National ID-linked portable social account allowing informal workers to accumulate healthcare, pension, and disability credits through tiered voluntary contributions, with employer or government co-contributions as the formalization incentive. India's e-Shram portal (280 million+ registrations) and Thailand's Section 40 scheme provide implementation templates. Phase-in sequence: domestic workers and construction laborers in year one, transport workers and traders in year two, agricultural day laborers from year three.

2. TVET reform anchored to revealed comparative advantages.

Modernize curricula in partnership with employers in electronics assembly, pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, and IT-enabled services, sectors where Bangladesh has cost and proximity advantages. Establish competency-based international certification. Introduce merit scholarships to shift TVET's social prestige. The NSDA mandate exists; it needs enforcement authority and a dedicated budget line equivalent to at least 0.3% of GDP.

3. Platform work regulation and minimum wage indexation.

Enact a platform labor framework providing minimum earnings floors, mandatory accident insurance, and portable benefit accumulation for the 2.0 million gig workforce. Simultaneously, replace the ad hoc minimum wage revision cycle with automatic indexation: a CPI calculated on garment-worker expenditure baskets, adjusted annually with a productivity-sharing component. Both reforms reduce industrial conflict, improve worker welfare, and create a predictable operating environment for compliant employers.

Sources: BBS Labor Force Survey 2022, ILO ILOSTAT, World Bank WDI, BIDS 2023, BGMEA, BMET 2024, ILO Better Work Bangladesh, ILO-UNICEF 2021, Bangladesh Bank.