Soaring trend in overseas jobs for Bangladeshis during the last few months are signaling strong signs of recovery by a number of Asian economies particularly in Middle East, which were feeling the pinch of global financial meltdown, Local manpower recruiters said Tuesday.

They made the observation after the South Asian country's state agency -- Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) -- Tuesday said some 441,590 Bangladeshis, including over 39,607 in November, found overseas jobs in the first 11 months of this year.

The apex body of the country's over 1,000 international recruiting agencies said overseas jobs for Bangladeshis started to pick up in almost all the major Asian countries, particularly in some Middle East and Southeast Asian nations, prime destinations of Bangladeshi job aspirants.

"Soaring trend in demands for employment of workers during the last few months signal strong signs of recovery by the countries which felt the pinch of global economic downturn," Golam Mostafa, president of the Bangladesh International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) told Xinhua on Tuesday.

He said, "We first observed demands for workers to surge in October this year, after falling for seven months due to global recession, particularly from oil-rich Middle Eastern Asian countries."

The number of overseas jobs for Bangladeshis in October recorded a seven-month high after the country's 43,812 workers found employment in that month thanks to the starting of the global economic recovery from the recession, recruiters said.

In February this year, according to the BMET, highest 43,856 Bangladeshis found overseas jobs.

A senior BMET official said the number of foreign jobs in November could be higher than those of October unless the last few days of the month would remain closed for government holidays on occasion of the Eid-ul-Azha, second biggest festival of Muslims, in Bangladesh and many other countries across the world.

The BMET official, however, said overseas jobs for Bangladeshis in the first 11 months from January to November this year plunged nearly 46.84 percent compared to that in the same period a year ago as demands for workers dwindled amid global recession.

"Some 441,590 people found overseas jobs in the first 11 months until November against over 830,677 in the same period of last year," said the official on condition of anonymity, as he is not authorized to talk to media, quoting the provisional statistics of the BMET.

Of the total overseas employment in the first 11 months, he said nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshi workers found jobs in a number of Middle East and few Southeast Asian countries.

Recruiters said the global economic downturn, worst since 1930,forced many companies particularly in Middle Eastern Asian nations to downsize their scheduled infrastructure development activities.

"Good thing is that the infrastructure development activities in the UAE, among other Middle Eastern Asian countries, are again getting momentum in the recent months, which come as a big boon for Bangladesh job seekers," said owner of another recruiting agency, who preferred to be unnamed.

India, another biggest manpower sending country in the region, reportedly on Saturday said there is no cause for worrying over potential job losses among Indians employed in the Gulf following the multi-billion-dollar debt default risk faced by Dubai World.

There was some impact in the Gulf region at the beginning of the meltdown last year but the situation had changed since then, Indian Minister for Overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi was also quoted as saying in a report of the Indo-Asian News Service Saturday.

The BAIRA president Mostafa expressed the hope that overseas jobs for Bangladeshis will surge to some extent in the first quarter of 2010. "We're confident that demands will pick up since the beginning of 2010 as the major manpower receiving countries are likely to recover by then," he said.

Recruiters said the rise in overseas employment is expected to further boost up the inflow of remittances from workers, the second highest foreign currency generating source after exports in which Bangladesh earned US$15.57 billion in last 2008-09 fiscal year.

According to Bangladesh Bank, in the last 2008-09 fiscal year (July 2008-June 2009), remittance from more than 5.5 million Bangladeshi expatriates totaled US$9.68 billion, around 22.38 percent higher than that of 2007-08 fiscal year.

Bangladesh in the first four months of the current fiscal year 2009-10 ending in June also received around US$3.62 billion in remittances, up 21.20 percent from a year earlier, the central bank data showed.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2009)