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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) hired more than 58 per cent of the total outbound workers from Bangladesh in October this year despite continuous deportation of workers from the Middle Eastern country, official figure showed.
The country recruited 51,252 Bangladeshi workers out of the total 75,188 who went abroad in the month, according to Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) data.
However, it deported some 1,561 Bangladeshi workers in the first two weeks of this month and over 21,000 sent back home since January this year, according to the welfare desk at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and Brac migration programme.
Brac data also showed that nearly 10,000 female workers returned home after being tortured by the employers in different ME countries in the last four years - a large number of them came from Saudi Arabia.
Some 1,500 women workers have been sent from Saudi Arabia last year while 1,000 from January to September this year.
Experts said such migration is not sustainable as workers are not getting available jobs and returning home within a short period of their migration.
They suggested that both the countries should be active against visa trading. Still 80 per cent of the total Bangladeshi workers went to Saudi Arabia with individual or so called free visas.
Shakirul Islam, chairman of Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme (OKUP), said authorities should strictly scrutinise the visas and employers before approval as many workers are going to Saudi Arabia with so called free visas and deported home because of joblessness.
"Such migration will not be sustainable," he said, adding that a section of recruiters is earning a large amount of money through sending workers with free visas.
In this way, a large amount of money is also being laundered to Saudi Arabia as a section of employers are also involved into it, he added.
As Saudi Arabia has stopped hiring workers in 42 trades, the recruitment requisitions from the trades should be denied immediately, Mr Islam said.
The overall manpower export declined by about 12 per cent in the first 10 months of current year than that of the corresponding period of last year.
Bangladesh sent 545,453 workers during the January-October period of 2019 while Saudi Arabia recruited 319,364 workers. The country sent 614,585 workers abroad in the first 10 months of 2018.
Countries like Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait and Singapore are the main markets for Bangladeshi workers.