SOCIAL PENSION PLAN BENEFICIARY: A group of Nepalese older citizens smile after receiving a social pension plan payment at Nepal Bank in Lalitpur, a neighbouring city of the capital Kathmandu, yesterday. Nepal government has been providing a social pension plan for citizens over 70 years of age. Each pensioner gets Rs500 (just over $5) per month. According to the latest census in Nepal, the senior citizen population has almost doubled from 4.6% in 2001 to 9.1% in 2011.

A recent Nepal’s official data reveals that 1.83% of total working population has left the Himalayan country in the first eight months of the current fiscal year 2012/13.

Altogether more than 276,700 individuals have shifted to various countries seeking jobs over the period up to mid-March, according to the department of foreign employment (DoFE) and this figures count 1.83% of the total 15.09mn working age population (aged between 15 and 59 years) as recorded in the national population and housing census 2011 conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics under National Planning Commission.

“We have issued the final work approvals for 276,787 job aspirants looking abroad in this period compared to 204,887 individuals in the corresponding period of last fiscal year,” said Purna Chandra Bhattarai,
director general of DoFE.

The statistics show an increment of 35% in the numbers of Nepalese youths leaving the country for overseas employment over the period, Xinhua reported.

Mostly, demand for the Nepalese workers is rising in Malaysia in recent times, leaving the widely popular destinations - Gulf countries - behind in the list. In the eight months period, some 101,509 Nepalese youths have chosen Malaysia to fulfill their dreams while Saudi Arabia and Qatar have received 54,762 and 48,928 workers from Nepal respectively being second and third most popular destinations.

“The segment of unskilled migrants has declined slightly by 1% in the eight months period that positioned at 74% compared to 75% of last year,” said Bhattarai.

Though the departure of youth migrants is notably on the rise, slow growth tendency is ruling the workers’ remittances, an eye-opener for policymakers in Nepal. The economy is heavily relied upon the remittance income with some 21.2% of contribution of it in total gross domestic product (GDP).

According to the macroeconomic situation of Nepal released by the central bank, Nepal Rastra Bank, based on the seven months’ data of 2012/13, in US dollar terms, remittance inflow has increased by merely 8% to $2.58bn compared to an increase of 25% in the same period of the previous year. On a monthly basis, remittance inflows decreased by 20% in January/February compared to the value of the previous month of the current fiscal year.

“Owing to the large section of unskilled labourers plying among the migrants from Nepal, the remittance inflow trend does not seem correlating the surge in overseas migration,” said statistician Bishnu Dev Pant, executive director of the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS).

Pant urged the government to bring enhanced programmes to train the unskilled labourers before they get work permits from DoFE.

In the same way the foreign employment entrepreneurs in Nepal asked the government authorities concerned to tackle diplomatically for the timely wage hike for the workers in various countries which could give a momentum to the remittance inflow.

“Even the unskilled workers from Bangladesh and Philippines are getting much more wages than our migrants working at the same level and this is good result of unremitting diplomatic efforts of those nations,” said Bal Bahadur Tamang, chairman of the Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA).

Tamang put emphasis on lobbying at the government level to ensure proper wage hike in the gulf nations just like the recent announcement of increment in basic wages from the Malaysian government resulting the nation as most opted-for destination to work.