Fisheries and Livestock Adviser Farida Akhter has stated that informal workers make up the overwhelming majority of Bangladesh’s labor force but remain largely unrecognized and unprotected. Speaking at the ‘Women Workers in Informal and Marginal Sectors Conference 2025’ in Dhaka, she emphasized that the country’s economic assessments often overlook the contributions of informal workers, leaving them excluded from policy and social protections.
Akhter noted that around 85 percent of Bangladesh’s workforce operates in the informal sector, including tea laborers, fishers, and domestic workers, whose efforts sustain the national economy. However, economists and policymakers tend to focus on the formal sector, she said, neglecting the invisible labor that underpins economic growth. Other speakers, including former Labor Reform Commission head Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed and Oxfam in Bangladesh Country Director Ashish Damle, echoed calls for structural recognition and gender-sensitive labor reforms.
Participants urged the government to integrate informal workers into national labor frameworks, highlighting the need for leadership development and collective advocacy to ensure fair rights and representation.
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মৎস্য ও প্রাণিসম্পদ উপদেষ্টা ফরিদা আখতার বলেছেন, বাংলাদেশের শ্রম বাজারে অনানুষ্ঠানিক শ্রমিকদের সংখ্যা অত্যধিক, কিন্তু তাদের অধিকাংশই স্বীকৃতি বা সুরক্ষার বাইরে রয়েছেন। তিনি বলেন, অর্থনীতির অসাবধানতার কারণে অনানুষ্ঠানিক শ্রমিকদের অবদান জানা হচ্ছে না,
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