By Sakib Faisal
A country can report a relatively low unemployment rate and still face a profound employment crisis. Bangladesh illustrates this paradox. The World Bank’s figure of 3.8 per cent for 2025, based on an International Labour Organization (ILO) modelled estimate rather than a fresh national survey, tells us something about unemployment. It tells us far less about the quality of work, the wages people earn, or the opportunities young people believe they have.
A graduate working far below their qualifications, a worker surviving on irregular earnings, or a young person who has stopped searching for a suitable job may not fit neatly into the headline figure. Yet their economic insecurity is real. To understand the country’s employment challenge, we must look beyond who is officially unemployed to what happens when large numbers of people cannot find productive, dependable and dignified work.
The consequences reach well beyond household income. Prolonged exclusion from the formal economy can weaken social trust, expose vulnerable people to exploitation, strain families and distort political participation. None of these outcomes is inevitable. Nor should unemployment be treated as a convenient explanation for every social ill. But the connections are important enough to deserve a place at the centre of public policy.
Consider the illegal economy. Extortion remains a recurring concern around markets, transport, construction and local businesses. It is sustained by networks of power, political protection, weak enforcement and the expectation of quick money. Unemployment does not create those networks on its own. But a shortage of credible earning opportunities can make recruitment easier, especially when young people see years of education and competitive examinations offering little prospect of stability while illicit influence appears to yield immediate rewards.
The policy implication is not that job creation can replace policing. Rather, enforcement and economic opportunity must reinforce each other. An economy that leaves aspiring workers with few legitimate routes forward makes it harder to resist those who profit from intimidation and informal coercion.
A similar distinction matters when discussing theft, robbery, fraud and other financially motivated offences. Poverty or unemployment does not turn people into criminals; most people facing hardship do not commit crimes. Substance use, inequality, social circumstances, criminal networks and the perceived likelihood of punishment also shape behaviour. Nevertheless, sustained economic desperation can increase vulnerability to illicit offers. Security policy that ignores the conditions in which recruitment occurs is likely to address symptoms more readily than causes.
The drug economy offers an especially stark example. Joblessness and uncertainty may contribute to drug use for some individuals, while the absence of lawful income may draw others into low-level distribution and trafficking. Yet the more neglected question is what happens after treatment or imprisonment. Someone who returns home with neither employment prospects nor a pathway back into society may find that the old network is still the easiest source of income and belonging.
Rehabilitation, therefore, cannot end at discharge from a centre or release from prison. Skills training, assistance in finding work and social reintegration must be treated as integral to recovery. Otherwise, institutions may repeatedly process the same people without changing the circumstances that pull them back.
There is a less visible cost as well: the steady erosion of confidence among young adults. Bangladesh has long regarded its large working-age population as a potential demographic dividend. But a demographic dividend is not guaranteed simply because there are more people of working age. UNFPA has noted that the peak of the country’s first demographic dividend passed in the early 2020s, with future gains dependent on productive employment and relevant skills.
For an educated young person, years without suitable work carry a burden that statistics rarely capture. At an age when society expects financial independence and support for parents, they may still depend on their families. Repeated questions from relatives, comparisons with peers and uncertainty about the future can gradually undermine self-respect. Unemployment becomes not just a missing pay cheque but a challenge to identity and social standing.
The risk is larger when education itself begins to lose credibility. If years spent earning degrees do not lead to reasonable employment prospects, younger students may question whether formal learning is worth the investment. That perception, if allowed to spread, would damage the very skills base on which long-term growth depends. UNFPA has also drawn attention to young people outside education, employment or training and to unemployment among the highly educated—warning signs that deserve more than rhetorical concern.
Economic frustration inevitably has political consequences. Citizens judge institutions not only by constitutional promises or ideological arguments but also by whether they can support a family, absorb rising living costs and imagine a better future for their children. A government cannot provide a public-sector post to everyone, nor should that be its task. Its responsibility is to foster an environment in which investment, enterprise, industry and services generate opportunities, and education responds to the needs of employers and society.
Persistent failure on that front can translate into disillusionment with governments and institutions, regardless of which party holds office. Employment is therefore not merely an economic performance indicator. It is a test of governance—and one whose results are felt personally in households across the country.
It also bears on the quality of political organisation. Where young people have no secure income, some may become vulnerable to recruitment for paid rallies, displays of muscle or even violence. Such participation is driven less by conviction than by immediate financial need. Political parties may gain a temporary crowd or a show of force, but loyalty purchased through patronage is rarely durable. More importantly, it risks turning political competition away from ideas and public service towards money and intimidation.
Economic independence does not guarantee principled politics. It can, however, give citizens greater freedom to participate on their own terms rather than as clients dependent on powerful patrons. Political leaders consequently have a direct interest in an economy that allows young people to build livelihoods outside partisan networks.
The pressure is also felt at home. A prolonged lack of earnings can intensify conflict within families, exhaust savings and deepen feelings of humiliation. Those without structured work, study or training may drift into unproductive routines, including excessive consumption of short-form online entertainment. That should not be dismissed as a moral failure or described simplistically as cultural decline. It raises a more practical question: how can young people’s time and capabilities be connected to purposeful activity?
At the margins, limited access to employment can also interact with disability, inadequate social protection and poverty to push some people towards begging or expose them to organised exploitation. Others may become susceptible to online scams or promises of effortless income. Again, no single cause explains these outcomes. The point is that exclusion from secure livelihoods compounds existing vulnerabilities.
This is why Bangladesh needs a broader understanding of employment success. Counting jobs is insufficient if those jobs are precarious, poorly paid or disconnected from workers’ skills. Policy must pursue productive enterprises, easier conditions for responsible business, better links between training and labour-market demand, and realistic pathways back to work for people who have been excluded. Law enforcement, education, social protection and employment policy cannot operate as separate conversations. Nor should policymakers mistake any paid activity for meaningful economic participation. The distinction between having work and earning a stable living matters enormously for people trapped in intermittent, low-paid or unsuitable jobs. Measuring progress therefore requires attention not just to the headline unemployment rate but also to job quality, earnings, security and the transition from education into work. Otherwise, statistical improvement may coexist with persistent public frustration.
A decent job does more than provide a salary. It can restore a young person’s confidence, stabilise a household, generate tax revenue and strengthen the bonds that hold communities together. Conversely, the costs of unused human potential accumulate across families, markets, neighbourhoods and political institutions.
Bangladesh’s real challenge, then, is not simply to lower a percentage. It is to ensure that its working-age population can contribute with skill, security and dignity. A large population becomes a national asset only when people have a genuine opportunity to put their abilities to work.
20
