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In the hotels of Ukraine, a female gatekeeper known as dezhurnaya is stationed on each floor. Her task is to patrol the corridor and hold guests' keys as if the receptionist downstairs could not be trusted with such a simple responsibility. At the base of every subway escalator, another guard sits with the sole purpose of verifying that life around the escalator remains normal. These roles linger as relics of the bygone communist era when the overriding ambition was to ensure that every citizen held a government post even if that meant inventing work where none existed. The government of that time created positions not because there was work to be done but because there were people to be employed.
Much of the world has since abandoned that approach. Governments across the political spectra have come to accept that an oversized public sector is not only inefficient but fiscally unsustainable. Last year, the United States eliminated over 300,000 federal jobs in an effort to reduce administrative waste and restrict the state's economic impact. The United Kingdom has also announced plans to remove 10,000 civil service positions and reduce the cost of running government by 15 per cent over the next four years. Another notable example arises from Argentina where President Javier Milei dismissed 51,000 government workers within his first year in office. The International Monetary Fund now projects Argentina's GDP to grow at 4.5 per cent in 2026 which is the highest rate in Latin America. Without a doubt, this outcome is directly attributable to the fiscal discipline his policies imposed or, less charitably, the absence of previous indulgences.
These changes indicate a growing acknowledgment that the size of the state has a direct bearing on the health of the economy it governs. A large public workforce can quickly become a drain on taxpayer money that weakens the state's capacity to carry out its essential functions. This concern carries particular weight in Bangladesh where government finances are already in a bad shape. Barely two months into the tenure of the BNP government, the authorities have been compelled to rely on substantial bank borrowing to meet immediate needs. Pressure on the exchequer is mounting from multiple directions. Rising fuel prices are pushing up government expenditure while newly introduced social safety net programmes including the family card scheme and agricultural loan waivers of up to Tk 10,000 per farmer are adding further obligations.
In the light of the circumstances, the prudent course of action would have been to carefully reassess the government's spending priorities. However, the current direction appears to move the other way. Plans are advancing to recruit half a million new government employees in order to fulfil an electoral commitment, a fact verified by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in parliament. The Ministry of Public Administration has already solicited updated vacancy information from various ministries and divisions to that end. While it is true that a large number of sanctioned posts remain vacant, the existence of a vacancy is not by itself a justification for filling it. What matters more is whether filling a given position would genuinely contribute to the delivery of public services or merely add to an administration that is already larger than the country can afford.
It is no secret that government departments in Bangladesh are institutions of chronic inefficiency and pervasive corruption. Many officials devote their energy not to public service but to creating bureaucratic obstacles that can then be removed in exchange for bribes and informal payments. Across the country, numerous departments operate with minimal activity where officials remain present for fixed hours without performing work of any substantive value. The problem has never been the shortage of personnel but a failure of purpose and accountability. Given this reality, adding half a million more people to this culture of unaccountability will serve only to multiply the problem and gain nothing.
The recent resignation of Akbar Hossain, who served as press minister at the Bangladesh High Commission in London, reveals how little some government roles demand of those who hold them. A career journalist by background, he was accustomed to doing actual work. Upon entering his government post, he found himself going days, sometimes weeks, without anything meaningful to perform. Unable to reconcile himself to the absence of productive responsibility, he resigned. What he described as a personal experience is, for a significant percentage of government job holders, an unremarkable daily reality. If this is the case for those already employed, under no circumstances does it make fiscal sense to recruit additional people when those on the payroll already lack sufficient work to justify their presence.
The attraction of government jobs among educated young people adds another dimension to this problem. Many young Bangladeshis devote years to preparing for government jobs drawn by the benefits and perceived security of public employment that private enterprises cannot guarantee. For some, the appeal goes further still. In some positions, informal income flowing to officials is so substantial that official salaries remain untouched in their bank accounts with little need to draw on them. When the system places very little emphasis on performance, outcomes of this kind are hardly surprising. Clearly, holding the existing workforce to genuine standards of accountability would do far more good than adding further to the ranks. That alone might redirect young talent towards the private sector, towards entrepreneurship and towards activities that generate real economic value.
At a moment when the government struggles to cover its obligations, the rational course is to reduce expenditure rather than expand it. The most logical place to begin is by not adding to the workforce that already contains more position than public needs demands, and where possible, reconsidering those that produce no corresponding public benefit. Just because an electoral manifesto promised it does not make a commitment defensible. Governance requires the willingness to depart from stated intentions when honouring them would cause measurable harm to public finances.