The global coronavirus pandemic made more than 95,000 expatriate Bangladeshis jobless who returned from different foreign countries in last four months since April 1.

“A number of 95,062 overseas Bangladeshi workers have lost their jobs and returned to Bangladesh from 26 different foreign nations during April 1-August 30 period”, expatriate welfare desk official M Fakhrul Alam said.

Some 88,406 male and 6,656 female Bangladeshi workers mostly lost their jobs due to global COVID-19 pandemic, said Alam who worked at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

“The Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry has taken various programmes including formation a Taka 700 crore fund for the welfare of the jobless Bangladeshi foreign workers”, said Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad.

The affected expatriate Bangladeshi workers will get investment credit with 4 percent interest from this fund, said the minister.

In addition to this, Ahmad said the government has earmarked nearly Taka 10 crore ‘emergency food and other assistance’ for vulnerable expatriate Bangladeshi workers. The family of each expatriate Bangladesh workers who already have expired due to COVID-19 infection will get Taka 3 lakh as soon as possible.

Even the government will give certificate and recognition to the skilled jobless Bangladeshi foreign workers who have been affected due to the world-wide pandemic and the poor Bangladeshi workers and their family members will be brought under the social safety net programme, the minister added.

The highest Bangladeshi foreign workers have been returned from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a total of 25,653 workers—where 24,553 are male and the rest 1100 are female.

Some 15,389 Bangladeshi workers have returned from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) where 13,796 male and 1,593 female. Most of the Bangladeshi workers in the KSA have returned to the country with ‘outpass’ after imprisonment in different jail terms.

From Maldives, a total of 7,909 expatriate Bangladeshi workers returned to the country as Maldives is a tourist-prone country and that’s why the people lost their jobs under corona pandemic.

The Jobless Bangladeshi workers have also returned from Singapore, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, South Africa, Qatar, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Jordan, Iraq, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Italy, Lebanon, Russia, Mauritius, Turkey, Nepal, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Japan during this time.