Jumbangla Desk: In the last nine years, the number of unemployed graduates in the country has increased three times, according to a report by the World Bank. According to the report, in 2013, the total unemployment among the highly educated in the country was 9.7 percent. In 2022, it reached 27.8 percent. Meanwhile, jobs matching the educational qualifications are not available.

The report also said that as many as 1.2 million people in the country could face extreme poverty this year due to job losses and falling real wages.

In this report titled 'Bangladesh Development Update', this Washington-based lender said that a little more than 5% of the total workforce in Bangladesh gets government jobs. However, there are not enough employment opportunities in the private sector.

The report also states that many countries are providing policy support to entrepreneurship and startups but the youth of Bangladesh are facing challenges due to lack of opportunities and guidance. Women entrepreneurs are also not able to advance due to lack of collateral, insufficient access to financing and gender discrimination by banks.

At the release of the report at the World Bank office in Dhaka yesterday, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan Abdullaye Sek said urban youth face significant challenges in getting jobs.

He also said that most of the employment opportunities have been created in the agricultural sector. A large proportion of employment in this sector is informal and low paid. Not enough employment has been created in industry and service sector.

On the other hand, according to several studies, there is a mismatch between the skills of graduates and the demand in the job market in Bangladesh, leading to unemployment. The report notes that unemployment rates are higher among the relatively young and women.

Despite a decline in the country's overall unemployment rate between 2016 and 2022, nearly one-fifth of young women are unemployed. This means that women face more difficulties in getting suitable jobs after completing higher education. The World Bank said in the report that women still suffer from pay discrimination and discrimination in employment.

According to the report, between 2016 and 2022, employment in the manufacturing sector fell by 9.6 percent while the average annual growth in the manufacturing sector was 9.1 percent.