A weekly round up of articles about employment, the labour market, skills training and workforce development.This week’s round up is drawn from The Daily Star. Here is the news for the week ending 17th March 2016.

This week in the Bangladesh English Press…

…agreements to send Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia reach an impasse. The International Labour Organization explores the plight of domestic workers and international buyers are criticised for driving down pay in Bangladesh garments factories. A Swedish expert says a systematic approach to helping the poor is more effective than just giving cash handouts. And on an agricultural note Bangladeshi potatoes head overseas.

 The Struggle for Decent Work

The agreement between the Malaysian government and Bangladesh government on the supply of Bangladeshi workers has had its ups and downs. Finally Malaysia has cancelled its plan to recruit one and a half million workers from Bangladesh. It’s not clear what has led to this final declaration. But an economic downturn, alleged corruption among agents and employers, and trafficking incidents may have been factors.

Women make up eighty per cent of domestic workers globally. A new report from the International Labour Organization says that the great majority of the world’s sixty seven million domestic workers have no access to social security. The fragile situation of Bangladesh’s domestic workers has been frequently reported.

A British newspaper has accused a major German retailer of benefitting unfairly by paying Bangladeshi workers too little to make its jeans. Of course this is a complex issue. And it’s been subject to debate and research. But here’s the British newspaper’s report.

The influential director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre says that graduation programmes for the poor are more cost effective than cash transfer programmes. This is mostly because graduation programmes lead to long-term improvements in employment conditions.

Potatoes for Export

Farmers in the northern districts of Bangladesh have seen large increases in potato production in recent years. But the farmers have not been able to benefit because there are limited storage facilities.

Now a major Bangladeshi agro-processing company plans to export 40,000 tonnes of potatoes to Southeast Asian countries this year.

The farmers will have contracts with the company. The company will provide seeds and fertilisers at low cost and guarantee to buy the crops produced.

And that’s the news from The Daily Star this week.