Lately, the manpower companies have fallen prey to the coronavirus pandemic.

As many as 516 manpower agencies in Nepal are on the verge of collapse as the employment providing companies in foreign countries are severely hit by the pandemic.

As per the provision of the Foreign Employment Act, 2007, a manpower agency will be scrapped if it does not send at least 100 migrant workers to a foreign country.

Recently, the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) has ordered the manpower companies to submit details of at least 100 workers sent abroad in the last two fiscal years in order to get the renewal.

The manpower agencies are reeling under high crisis as most of the Nepali migrant workers stranded in foreign lands are returning home as they lost their jobs.

According to the DoFE, around 127,000 Nepali migrants are expected to return home immediately while another 407,000 others are expected to return in the long run.

Among them, nearly 280,000 Nepalis have already lost their jobs as the labor destinations are in the throes of a recession due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Nepal Central bureau of Statistics (CBS) is preparing to conduct the study effectively after a gap of two years.

However, the CBS has said that it is difficult to include all Nepalis, given the fact that 7.5 million Nepalis are living in 189 countries.

“It is impossible to include especially those living with their family in the 2021 National Census. We need to devise a standard mechanism to conduct it,” said CBS Director General Nebin Lal Shrestha.

Shrestha said that the CBS team will utilize the support of the Nepali diaspora spread across diplomatic missions and consulates. Nepal has diplomatic missions in 30 countries and consulates in 80 countries.

Presently, the Nepal Government has information only on Nepalis living abroad for education and work. It will be a cumbersome task to draw information from countries without Nepali diplomatic missions.

This limitation has become an issue of concern for Nepal over the years. Census Expert Dipendra Thapa said that the government should put in every effort to collect details of Nepali migrants from the upcoming national census.

“The government has to come up with genuine data of Nepali population living abroad in collaboration with the diplomatic missions, consular and other Nepali organizations under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Shrestha.

Earlier, the CBS had decided to include more than 4 million Nepalis living abroad, however, close to 60 percent of them will be missed in the 2021 national census.

Nepal National Census 2011

Nepal’s population was 26,620,809 as of 2011, from which a total of 1,925,000 Nepali people were living abroad. According to the estimate by the CBS, the total population of Nepal has gone up by four times until date.

The CBS planned to conduct a mock consensus in various districts starting January 15 – April 12 , 2020. A total of 55 wards from 14 districts (two from each district) will be picked for the mock census.

The upcoming census will cover all people of different creeds, castes and sexual minorities.

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In a recent move, the Qatar Government said its new facility in Nepal will bear all the test and contract related expenses of Nepali migrants.

Qatar said this as a response to the widespread rumors about the failures in the labor agreement it had signed with Nepal.

Nepal Foreign Ministry (MoFA) informed that the Qatar Government has sent a letter on April 7, 2019 to Nepal Government confirming about the establishment of its visa center in Nepal.

In the letter, the Qatar Government said this decision will relieve the Nepali migrants from paying additional budgets.

“Charge will be borne by the employer and the worker will not have to pay any amount as fees to the center,” the letter read according to MoFA.

Despite the letter, the visa center establishment is getting delayed due to some objections raised by the Labor Ministry on the issue of additional expenses.

The latest announcement is in line with the Nepal Government’s ‘Free Visa Free Ticket’ Scheme.

Stay tuned for new updates on ‘Nepali migrants expenses waive off’ and Nepali migrants to Qatar!

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The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) said this in its recent report, where it pointed out that the scheme still lacks implementation and migrant workers continue to pay hefty amounts to recruitment agencies.

“The Department of Foreign Employment has not monitored whether the employer or recruiting agencies have paid for airfare, insurance, and visa fees,” read the OAG report findings revealed on April 12, 2019.

The government fails to implement the scheme even four years after the official announcement to ease migrant workers’ financial burden.

The scheme was launched with a mandate that employers will bear the visa and air travel expenses for workers going for employment in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Malaysia.

The workers will just need to pay for medical tests, orientation training and recruiting agencies for their services.

Despite the scheme’s implementation, thousands of migrant workers are still paying amounts to recruitment agencies for jobs in foreign destinations.

“Implementation of free visa and free ticket scheme was never on the priority list of the government. The political commitment on the part of the government has lacked because of the fact that its implementation will hurt the recruiting agencies,” says Barun Ghimire, programme manager at the Law and Policy Forum for Social Justice.

The scheme remains pending despite the Forum’s pleas to Supreme Court and further judgment by the apex court for early enforcement of the same.

“The government agencies have so far side-lined the implementation of this scheme. This tendency shows the state’s old habit of leaving things at status quo,” adds Ghimire.

Prior to this in 2017, the parliamentary International Relations and Labor Committee had also concluded the scheme as a complete failure.

It’s surprising that the migrant workers are paying around NPR 50,000-900,000 for overseas jobs even after the scheme’s announcement.

“If the government wants to strictly enforce the policy, it easily can. At least, the government authorities can raid recruiting agencies regularly which will send a strong message to those involved in charging heavy amount to poor migrant workers,” says Ghimire.

Stay tuned for more updates on ‘Nepali migrants concerns’!

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The Ministry of Labor Employment and Social Security has officially launched a call center facility on April 01, 2019!

The new facility allows migrants (at home and abroad) to express their difficulties, seek legal assistance and also lodge complaints on any kind of misconduct such as exploitation, frauds, etc.

Migrants can share their concerns through phone, email or social media applications such as Viber, WhatsApp and IMO, among others.

All complaints received at the call center will be forwarded to concerned authorities for further procedures.

The concerns can be reported on toll-free number ‘1141’ or 16600150005 or on mobile number 9771597008.

Earlier in 2017, the then Labor Minister Farmullah Mansoor had also launched a similar help desk system to assist Nepali migrants.

The new system in place aims to address migrant workers’ concerns that resulted out of poor inspection and monitoring mechanism by the related agencies.

In 2018, around 2,129 migrants had officially registered complaints against fraudulent acts by manpower agencies and agents, who had reportedly demanded more than NPR 1.5 billion in refund.

More such have gone unreported and unaddressed adding to Nepali migrants’ concerns. Hope the new call center facility will address the growing menace.

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Given this fact, the country has always been open for wide range of opportunities, investment and proposals from foreign nations. All is to ensure better livelihood and career opportunities for its young citizens!

This wish of the Himalayan Nation is growing in size with the reported rise in number of its youngsters leaving the country for career opportunities abroad.

See:

• Nepal, Fifth Largest Foreign Community to Receive US H-1B Visa
• Nepali Students Across Foreign Varsities on Rise
• Nepali Youth Migration for Foreign Employment on Rise

Now, local development and generating employment locally remain to be two key agendas of the Nepal Government to provide an alternative to the rising number of migrants leaving for foreign destinations.

Towards this end, the government has already announced plans for local skill development and employment laws in a move to ensure more opportunities for Nepali citizens, especially youth.

Besides, Nepal as a fast-developing country, also presents scope for enormous employment opportunities across its various sectors including government and private sectors undergoing fast-paced development.

Some of the key high-potential public sector areas offering larger scope for youth employment and career opportunities in Nepal, through their ongoing development, in the current scenario include:

• Hydropower
• Transport Infrastructure
• Civil Infrastructure
• Agriculture
• Industrial Sector
• Logistics & Services
• Public Policy
• Digital Governance
• Local-level groups such as District Health Groups, Community Welfare Centers, etc.,
• Think-tanks and various other local, provincial and central government departments

Aforementioned are some areas undergoing fast-paced development with both government and private sector participation.

Coming to other side of the Nepali society, there are also fast-paced private career opportunities stemming up across the country. Some of the encouraging trends showcasing high employment scope for Nepali youth in other areas, other than public sector, include:

• Start-up Culture & SME Growth
• Entrepreneurship
• Rise of Dynamic Enterprises
• Rise in technology adoption and increasing IT firms
• Openness to pursue new talents
• Increasing business investment in new and existing ventures (as part of expansion)
• Changing societal trends and thinking patterns
• Rising remittance flows

As the reports say, there is a high rate of demand for government jobs among youth from provinces. According to the Public Service Commission (PSC), job applicants to the department has increased almost six-fold in a decade period. The Department’s 59^th Annual Report puts Province 2 on the top of other provinces for such jobs.

Besides aforementioned opportunities that come as official notifications or via mouth talk, there might also be some good opportunities that can go unnoticed. As a solution to this, a good number of job portals in Nepal are operating on a regular basis looking every nook and corner of the country to keep the citizens informed about every new job opportunity along with offering them career counselling solutions.

Here are some of the top job portal and career counselling portals:

• Merojob
• Jobs Nepal
• RamroJob
• Kantipur Job
• Mero Rojgari
• Kumari Jobs

What World Bank Says?
In its report titled ‘Jobless Growth?’, the World Bank reports that Nepal needs to create more jobs to meet the employment needs of the gradually-growing working age population. “Every month, the working age population increases by 35,000 people and Nepal must create 286,900 jobs a year to maintain its employment rate,” reads WB report.

“Providing opportunities to these young entrants while attracting more women into the labor market will require generating even more jobs for every point of economic growth,” says Martin Rama, World Bank South Asia Region Chief Economist.

Government Efforts Underway!
Nepal Government has been making its efforts to address the situation in multiple ways.

Event the Budget FY 2018-19 has also dwelled more on creating sufficient job opportunities locally. Skill development is one step in the process that the Ministry of Labor has already announced as a measure to retain more local talents from going abroad to most-sought destinations such as Malaysia, Singapore, UAE, Australia, etc.

It’s alarming that around 512,000 youth leave the local market for foreign job opportunities, annually!

According to International Labor Organization, 63.7 percent of Nepal’s overall population are aged below 30 years and 19.2 percent of the youth in the age group of 15-29 years are facing unemployment.

Hope the ongoing developing and upcoming projects would provide needed scope for Nepali youth to earn their livelihood, locally, thus contributing to the homeland development.

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NHRC has recently recommended to the government, a 16-point document for effective management of foreign employment sector and address malpractices in the sector.

Strict monitoring of recruiting agencies and agents, immediate safeguarding of migrant workers facing challenges across foreign destinations and review of existing laws pertaining to them are among the key recommendations.

In response, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) forwarded the proposal to nine concerned ministries that need to give their nod for implementing the recommendations.

“The government is paying much attention to bringing back bodies of migrant workers. Similar attention should be given to those languishing in jail with no means to legal services, critically injured, and workers in coma in various hospitals. These workers should be brought back too,” says Sudip Pathak NHRC member.

What Stakeholders Said?
The recommendations were formulated after rounds of discussions among the Ministry of Labor Employment and Social, Security, Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB), Department of Foreign Employment, recruiting agencies and various other concerned stakeholders.

Welcoming the proposed recommendations, stakeholders felt more such proposals would be required to address the concerns of Nepali migrant workers.

Basant Karki from the International Labor Organization (ILO) urged the government to also discuss on protecting the rights of foreign workers coming to work in Nepal and involve private sector players in enforcing recommendations.

Stakeholders called for:

• Ending discrimination of aspirant female migrant workers from moving abroad for jobs, in a bid to protect them from trafficking and exploitation
• Ratification of conventions and signing of all the possible bilateral labor agreements with the destination countries
• Empowerment of Nepali missions in foreign destinations making them capable of handling migrants’ issues
• Job security of migrant workers without any extra payment under the ‘Employer Pays’ principle
• Strict enforcement of ‘Free Visa Free Ticket’ scheme and ensure acknowledgement for every payment that migrants pay to recruiting agencies

 
In response, Director General at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) Dilip Chapagain commended NHRC recommendations terming them ‘encouraging’ towards overhaul of Nepal’s foreign employment sector.

“The government has taken numerous measures recently to manage the sector and protect rights of Nepali workers,” said Chapagain.

Lauding the governmental efforts, NHRC Chairperson Anup Raj Sharma said, “It looks like most of the recommendations have been already implemented which is a good sign for everyone.”

Kul Prasad Karki, President of the Migrant Nepali Coordinator Committee, opined that the right implementation of these recommendations would definitely improve the foreign employment sector.

Also Read:

• Task Force Suggests New Destinations for Nepali Migrants
• Integrated System to Address Government Woes on Migrant Info

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Operated by the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), the Foreign Employment Information Management System (FEIMS) will keep detailed records of all migrant workers returning to Nepal for the first time.

“There had been data deficit on the actual number of migrant workers in foreign countries and those returning to Nepal after serving their job contract. The FEIMS will improve the data shortage condition,” says Gokarna Bista, Nepal Labor Minister.

The FEIMS website also has a supporting mobile application along with all the foreign employment and related agencies linked to it on a single platform, which include the Department of Passport, Department of Consular Services, Department of Foreign Employment, Department of Immigration, recruiting agencies, among other key agencies.

The new system also oversees employment verification procedures by Nepali missions at the foreign destinations along with gathering information on workers’ arrivals, informed the Ministry Secretary Mahesh Prasad Dahal.

“The system will provide real-time information and facilitate workers and manpower companies in their respective need. Additionally, it will also register workers’ grievances,” says Dahal.

FIEMS database will have integrated information and services concerning foreign employment at a place with consolidated data from all related agencies.

Now, workers can also apply for labor permits with ease as FIEMS issues a barcode-integrated sticker that will be unique for every application avoiding duplication. 

Ease in making insurance payments online, access to medical reports, track the progress of complaints are among other benefits the new system or its mobile application offers, informed the DoFE engineer Raju Shrestha.

“Besides providing services online to recruiting agencies and workers, the system will keep a check on efficiency of government officials. Incidents of files being lost that happened in the past will not happen,” says Shrestha.

Till date, the government was maintaining migrant workers’ data based on the number of work permits issued. However, they realized that wouldn’t be a reliable approach to keep track of Nepali migrants working in foreign destinations.  

“We have adopted the latest technology to improve foreign employment sector, making it more transparent and crack down misconduct going on under the cover of foreign employment,” says Bista.

Hope the new system would address discrepancies involving agents, insurance claims, employment, among other concerns haunting Nepali migrant workers.

Read More:

• Integrated System to Address Government Woes on Migrant Info
• Task Force Suggests New Destinations for Nepali Migrants

The post Nepal Introduces New System for Nepali Migrant Workers appeared first on Nepali Sansar.

The task force laid by the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security said the country has multiple opportunities for its labor migrants beyond the aforementioned regions.

The recommendations made by the task force majorly involved European countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden and Romania holding potential job opportunities in agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

According to Udaya Raj Pandey, Head of the panel and former Nepali Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Nepali migrant workers can find ample job opportunities in around 19 countries, with high potential in ship cruise services.

The task force further informed that Portugal and two Indian Ocean island nations, Seychelles and Mauritius, are keen on welcoming Nepali workers and have already sent draft MoUs to recruit Nepalis under the Government-to-Government modality.

Key Takeaways of the Study
Speaking on the sidelines of the report, panel member and migration researcher with the Center for the Study of Labor & Mobility Arjun Kharel said the recommendations were made after thorough deliberations with related stakeholders and international labor market already hosting high number of Nepali migrant workers.

According to the task force, there has been a high concentration of Nepali migrant workers in countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Malaysia and Oman since early 1990s.

While a total of 153 countries have given permits to Nepali workers during between FY 2008-09 and 2016-17 periods, the aforementioned seven countries alone accounted for 6.42 per cent of outgoing Nepali migrant workers.

“Sending Nepali workers to these countries without proper study of their labor markets and agreements with the host country would rather invite problems. There have been many instances of Nepalis trying to reach these countries through illegal channels either by educational consultancies or agents,” says Kharel, citing the challenges being faced by the migrant workers.

Hope the government’s decision following the recommendations will work towards enhancing safe and secure job opportunities for Nepali migrant workers.

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Let’s have a glance at some of the key sectors that received major infrastructure push in the new budget:

Energy

With energy sector on top priority, the government allocated Rs 83.39 billion for enhancing the country’s energy infrastructure alone in the coming fiscal.

With a target of equipping all the households with modern energy within three years and further with sufficient energy supply within five years, the government plans to call 2019-2029 as the ‘Energy Decade’.

The budget also envisages construction of multipurpose hydropower projects across all provinces and begin construction of the same within two years period. The government is also planning to construct a 3,000-MW capacitive hydropower project with the combined investment of government, public and remittance funds.

There are also plans to develop a good number of micro-hydro projects and biogas plants to electrify the rural areas of the country.

Transport

Transport is another area that received a major boost in the present budget with an allocation of Rs 109.38 billion.

Some of the high-profile projects include cable car and monorail projects in Kathmandu, construction of the East-west railway line, Kathmandu-Nijgadh Expressway, Postal Highway, Pushpalal Mid-hill Highway and link roads connecting all the districts touching the southern border to the Pushpalal Mid-hill Highway, among others.

The new budget also envisages construction of new airports across the country.

The government has allocated a budget of Rs 1.43 billion for the transportation management system and is also developing relevant government agencies in all the provinces.

Tourism

Tourism is one sector that is of high significance for Nepal. The new budget has Rs 5.20 billion allocated for the overall development of Nepali tourism sector.

While the country reached 1 million target at the end of 2017, the new budget envisages a 2 million annual tourist arrival target by the end of 2020. Strengthening the domestic tourism to drive in more tourist inflow, the government is planning to develop 100 new tourist destinations and diversify tourist services across the country.

The government also has plans to develop the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism by mobilizing the country’s foreign missions. To facilitate ways for tourist arrivals, more number of airports are also being planned at various tourist destinations of the country.

Towards getting academic support, the government is also aiming at the conversion of the Nepal Academy of Tourism and Hotel Management (NATHM) into a deemed university.

Other key areas that received due attention for overall infrastructure development include:

• Economic Affairs- Rs 483.14 billion
• General Public Service – Rs 396.74 billion
• Housing & Community Amenities – Rs 66.57 billion
• Public Order & Security – Rs 47.50 billion
• Social Protection – Rs 46.91 billion
• Defense – Rs 44.93 billion
• Environment Protection – Rs 22.72 billion
• Recreation, Culture & Religion – Rs 7.10 billion

Overall, the new budget paid due attention to the infrastructure development across the country as a key to achieve the economic growth.

Next: Budget Gets Mixed Response

Related Article:

• Nepal’s Maiden Federal Budget 2018-19
• Nepal Federal Budget FY 2019-20: Highlights & Announcements

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