What’s your desired salary? It’s a question that will sweat out even the most confident applicant. The question will eventually pop up at one stage or the other during the recruitment process. What you need to do is be strategic about it. If you lowball the number, you will have to settle for less. If you go for the high, you might not be considered anymore. So how do you answer this? Let’s find out.  What is Desired Salary?  A desired salary is pretty much self-explanatory. It refers to the amount you expect in exchange for your service. A desired salary is useful both for the employer and the potential employee. It allows the employer to understand the expectations of the potential recruit and assess whether it fits within their budget or not.  On the other hand, a potential candidate can determine a desired salary based on their experience and skills for a position. However, it is important to research the market rate for similar positions and be prepared to negotiate to reach a mutually satisfactory salary package. Read more: How to Make a Video Resume: A Step-by-Step Guide How to Determine the Appropriate Desired Salary  From the perspective of Bangladesh, the concept of desired salary holds little value in most hiring cases. Unless you are applying for a highly technical position or a mid-career switch, the negotiations hardly work in favor of a candidate. Still, there are several ways to determine the appropriate salary. Here’s how.  Understand the Industry Standards  Research what the industry standard is for the role you’re applying to. Consider location, required skills, and level of experience in this regard. Bdjobs, Chakri, and CareerJet can be good starting points for the research.  Match Your Skills and Experience Be realistic about where you are skills and experience-wise. For example, if you apply for a position requiring 2-3 years of experience as a fresher, chances are you won’t even make it to the preliminary screening let alone salary negotiations.  Read more: Empower Your Tech Career in 2024: Master These In-Demand Skills for Success The best approach would be to again research what other companies are paying for your skills and experience level to get an estimate.  Factor in the Benefits  Many organizations offer benefits and perks like commute allowance, mobile allowance, rent subsidy, and high bonuses. Consider all the benefits you will be getting before estimating a number.  Consider Future Growth Potential  Another thing to consider is the future growth potential of the company. In the case of a company with a robust growth and promotion structure, an initial low salary can be offset by long-term career earnings.  Read more: What to Wear for a Job Interview

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has directed keeping the scheduled banks open on April 19-21 (Wednesday to Friday) to facilitate payment of garment workers' salary, Eid bonus and allowances. The central bank has asked the banks to keep open the branches before Eid-ul-Fitr in the industrial areas including Dhaka metropolitan, Ashulia, Tongi, Gazipur, Savar, Bhaluka, and the industry related branches of banks located in Narayanganj and Chittagong ensuring adequate security. Read more: Gazette published fixing Tk 8,000 as minimum wage for RMG workers The Department of Off-site Supervision of Bangladesh Bank on Monday issued a circular in this regard

Mobile financial services provider upay Thursday signed an agreement with business conglomerate Pran-RFL Group to make salary disbursement and merchant payment easier. Also, the upay customers will be able to make payments while buying products from more than 1,800 outlets of Pran-RFL Group's Best Buy, Vision Electronics, Walker, Tasty Treat, Mithai, Daily Shopping, Regal Furniture, and Othoba.com. "We are very happy that Pran-RFL Group has chosen upay to disburse the salary of their factory employees and accept payments at the retail outlets of various brands owned by the group," said Rezaul Hossain, managing director and CEO of upay. Read Pathao Courier to get upay cash collection solutions Uzma Chowdhury, chief financial officer of Pran-RFL, said: "We have chosen upay as they have some unique features which will be beneficial to our employees. After receiving salary in their upay salary wallet, Pran-RFL employees can cash out the money from upay points at a reduced rate. Upay account has a unique multi-wallet feature which includes a primary wallet, salary wallet, remittance wallet, and disbursement wallet.  Also read: upay signs deal with Titas Gas to facilitate prepaid bill payment Upay, a subsidiary of United Commercial Bank, was launched in March 2021.

Ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, the government Sunday asked to pay the salaries and allowances of the employees of government, semi-government, and autonomous institutions by April 25. The government has decided to pay salaries and allowances by April 25, the Finance Division said in a notification, as Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on May 3, subject to the sighting of the moon. Also, retired government employees will get their monthly pensions at the same time. Also read: HC seeks explanation over permission before arresting govt employees

The allocation of money for salaries and allowances of the public sector will see an uptrend from the next fiscal after a span of four years.  The government is going to allocate some 12.2% of the total budget in the upcoming fiscal of 2021-22 for salaries and allowances to the public servants and other related pockets. The allocation of this sector will be 12.5% in 2022-23 fiscal of the total budget, according to an official document. Read BSMMU announces Tk 602.73cr budget for FY 2020-21 The estimated amount of money for the next two fiscals would be Tk 745.3 billion and Tk 869.8 billion respectively. After the 2016-17 fiscal, the amount of spending in salaries and allowances for the public servants, as a proportion of the budget witnessed a downward slide. In 2016-17 fiscal the allocation was 18.2% while it nosedived to 14.8% in 2017-18 fiscal. The allocated amount for the 2016-17 fiscal was Tk 490.43 billion whereas the allocation reduced to Tk 478.5 billion in the following fiscal. As per the document, the allocation in 2013-14 fiscal was Tk 263.94 billion (14%) and Tk 288.20 billion (14.8%) in 2014-15. Also read: When govt allowances kick in at 90! The allocation saw a sharp rise in 2015-16 and 2016-17 fiscals with 16.7% and 18.2% of the total budget allocation. The amounts during these two fiscals for the salaries and other allowances were Tk 400.50 billion and Tk 490.43 billion. The document said that the rise in the allocation occurred due to implementation of the new pay scale for the public servants that continued for the two consecutive fiscals. The expenditure in the sector reduced to 14.8% (Tk 478.5 billion) of the budget in 2017-18 fiscal and 13.6% (Tk 534 billion) in 2018-19 fiscal. The trend continued in 2019-20 fiscal with 12.2% and in 2020-21 fiscal with 11.6%. The allocation for the fiscals were Tk 607.5 billion and Tk 650 billion respectively. Also read: All senior citizens to receive old-age allowance by 2025: Minister The official document expected that the trend of expenditure for the salaries and allowances in the coming two fiscals would be in the normal trend with 12.2% and 12.5% allocation of the total budget. The country is likely to get Tk 5933.14 billion budget for 2021-22 fiscal, Tk 253.14 billion higher than the running one, aiming to face the COVID-19 pandemic challenge for recovering the economy. Amid the coronavirus crisis, the government had taken up a comprehensive plan with four main strategies. These are: discouraging luxury expenditures, prioritising government spending that creates jobs, creating loan facilities through commercial banks at subsidised interest rate for the affected industries and businesses, and expanding the coverage of the government’s social safety net programmes. Read Budget: Prices of tobacco products up, gold down Meanwhile, the government has estimated to bring down its expenditure in current account while increasing the capital expenditure in the next 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscals. According to an official document, the current expenditure for 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal has been estimated at 54.4% and 54.5% of the total budget respectively. Salaries and allowances of public servants, purchase of product and service, compensation and relocation expenses, payment of interest against foreign and domestic loans are under the segment of current expenditure. Besides, ‘food accounts’ and ‘expense for structural coordination’ are also under this expenditure. Also read 5pc increment for non-govt edu teachers, employees announced On the other hand, government funded annual development programme (ADP) and non-ADP capital expenditure are the main two items under the capital expenditure. Besides, loan and advance, development programmes from revenue budget, projects outside the ADP and non-ADP food for work programme and handover expenses are also under this expenditure.

BGMEA President Rubana Huq on Wednesday said roughly 19,19,600  readymade garment workers received salary among 24,72,417 workers of their member factories.   She said they have paid the salary of almost 78 percent of the workers. The rest will get their salaries within Thursday, she hoped.   We are trying to pay all workers within April 20, Rubana said.