Bangladesh's labour market stands at a critical inflection point, with automation alone threatening up to 12.2 lakh ready-made garment (RMG) jobs and as much as 60 percent of female RMG employment at risk of displacement by 2041, according to a new policy brief by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
The brief, titled "Is Bangladesh Ready for the Future of Work? Preparing the Labour Market for Automation, AI, and Structural Transition," was published on Wednesday in collaboration with LIRNEasia under the FutureWORKS Asia initiative, with support from Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
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The brief draws on a foresight study analysing 27 national and global drivers of change to map four plausible scenarios for Bangladesh's labour market by 2035.
The study identifies five structural forces that persist across all scenarios: irreversible digitalisation, a reorientation of employment towards services, an education and skills system trailing demand, recurring external shocks, and institutional agility as the decisive factor determining whether outcomes are inclusive or exclusionary.
The CPD noted that manufacturing employment has already plateaued at around 81 lakh despite rising output, remaining below its 2013 level, while reskilling pathways for displaced workers are largely absent.
Services now absorb some 2.5 crore workers, but this expansion is largely insecure, with services employment itself contracting by about 2.4 percent between 2023 and 2024.
The brief pointed to a widening skills mismatch, noting TVET enrolment remains below 20 percent at the secondary level and carries social stigma, while public spending on education and skills has fallen to just 1.3 percent of GDP.
According to the report, the country's existing policy architecture, including the 8th Five-Year Plan, the National Employment Policy 2022, the Industrial Policy 2022, the Export Policy 2024–27, and the incoming government's commitments, correctly diagnoses present challenges but remains anchored in today's sectoral structures.
The CPD identified four recurring shortcomings: an absence of recognition of emerging issues such as platform work and AI governance, weak integration of evidence into policy design, insufficient nuance in implementation, and the lack of a clear implementation pathway.
The brief also highlighted that the costs of this transition fall unevenly, with young graduates struggling to secure productive employment and around 87 percent of employed persons with disabilities remaining in informal, low-productivity work.
As Bangladesh approaches graduation from the Least Developed Country (LDC) category, the CPD warned that the withdrawal of preferential trade access will intensify competitive pressures in export sectors, particularly RMG, accelerating the shift towards automation.
The CPD recommended a set of "no-regret" policy priorities applicable across all future scenarios, including industry-led reform of the TVET system, lifelong reskilling pathways, linking industrial incentives directly to job creation, a national Labour Market Information System, portable social protection covering gig and platform workers, and gender-sensitive, disability-inclusive transition strategies.
The brief concluded that rebuilding a minimum national consensus on workforce preparedness, similar to the cross-party commitment that once drove near-universal primary school enrolment and immunisation coverage, is a precondition for translating growth into decent, resilient and inclusive employment.