Over 20% of Bangladeshi Youth Classified as NEET

Between January 2023 and March 2024, 128 new readymade garment (RMG) factories joined BGMEA, potentially creating 74,000 jobs if fully operational. In the same 15-month period, 113 member factories shut down, displacing 96,104 workers—76,504 of them after August 2023 alone.

The cost of DWASA’s 'Dhaka Environmentally Sustainable Water Supply Project' has surged by Tk 28.28 billion in its third revision, raising the total estimated budget to Tk 109.75 billion—126.38% higher than the original Tk 48.48 billion approved in 2013. Despite an 11-year delay and 87% physical progress, the project remains incomplete.

Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser, Professor Muhammad Yunus, has requested China to develop a 50-year masterplan for managing the country’s complex river and water systems, which are vital to its ecosystem but also pose significant challenges.

The Shikha project, launched by the European Union and Brac, addresses gender-based violence (GBV) in Bangladesh, where recent studies show alarming rates of harassment: 80% of women in garment factories, 74% of female students, 94% of women using public transport, and 68% of women on online platforms have faced violence.

Women’s participation in STEM fields in Bangladesh stands at only 21%, significantly lower than India (43%), Sri Lanka (41%), and Indonesia (37%), despite women constituting 42% of the overall workforce. Experts stress the need for policy reforms, stronger academia-industry collaboration, and inclusive business models to boost women’s STEM involvement.

Bangladesh's private sector faces a deepening crisis as credit growth drops to a four-year low of 7%, and capital machinery imports fell by 34% in FY25. With 95% of the workforce employed in the private sector, businesses are halting expansion plans, exacerbating youth unemployment, especially among tertiary-educated individuals, whose unemployment rate rose from 9.7% in 2013 to 27.8% in 2022.