Overseas jobs for Bangladeshis rose by 40.85 percent in the past eight months of 2006, compared with those of the corresponding period of the previous year, local daily The Financial Express reported Thursday.

During the past eight months, 223,289 persons went abroad with jobs, including 4,761 defense personnel, compared with 158,376 of the corresponding period of the past year, the recently-published statistics of the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) revealed.

Over 4.37 million Bangladeshis have gone abroad with jobs since 1976.

The country-wise trend of manpower export reveals that the Middle East countries are the major overseas job markets for the Bangladeshis.

So far 2,167,396 people have gone to Saudi Arabia with jobs. Of them, around 55,682 persons went there during the last eight months.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has so far created 619,839 jobs for the Bangladeshis, including 66,655 in the last eight months.

Over 455,176 persons have so far been employed in Kuwait, 98, 105 in Qatar, 66,343 in Iraq, 53,747 in Libya, 125,908 in Bahrain, 244,185 in Oman, 15,835 in Brunei, 21,077 in Jordan and 4,015 in Lebanon.

On the other hand, over 269,157 Bangladeshis have so far been employed in Malaysia, 17,594 in South Korea, 134,775 in Singapore, 438 in Ireland, 5,777 in the United Kingdom, 462 in Laos, 4,201 in Mauritius, 2,403 in Italy, 1,327 in Spain, 637 in Madagascar, 468 in Namibia.

Besides, around 63,443 defense personnel have joined 52 United Nations peace-keeping missions in 12 countries since 1988, of which more than 10,000 soldiers are currently employed.

According to the BMET, of the total overseas job-seekers, 4 percent are professionals, 33 percent skilled, 16 percent semi- skilled and 47 percent unskilled.

Source: Xinhua