Earnings of Nepali overseas workers dwindles

Nepal has managed to post an encouraging growth in remittance, but a closer look at the receipts show that earnings of average Nepalis working overseas has dwindled drastically over the past one decade.

Data of Ministry of Labor shows Thursday the number of overseas workers has gone up by 77 times over the period of 1995/96 - 2005/ 06. However, the amount of remittance has edged up by just 34 times during the period, according to the central bank.

Analysis of these two figures suggests: earning per capita of overseas Nepali workers stands at mere half of what it used to be a decade ago, a leading website, eKantipur.com reported.

In 1995/96, Nepal had received a total of 2.66 billion Nepali rupees (some 38 million U.S. dollars) in remittance from 2,134 workers employed abroad, which means each worker had earned an average of 1.24 million rupees (17,714 dollars) per year.

Whereas, in 2005/06, 165,256 workers sent back 92.75 billion rupees (1.3 billion dollars), putting the earning per head at just above 560,000 rupees (8,000 dollars) a year.

Moreover, per capita earning figure has gone down further in the first six months of the current fiscal year ending in mid-July. With volume of remittance receipt standing at 51.59 billion rupees (some 737 million dollars) from 94,964 outgoing workers, per worker earning has dropped to 542,500 rupees (some 7,750 dollars).

Foreign employment company operators attributed the continued shrinking in hard earned income to increasing global competition on overseas job and burgeoning living cost in the employer country.

"Intensified competition among workers from Nepal as well as other source countries has resulted in a decline in wage rate and other facilities to the workers," L P Sanwa, president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies, told the website.

"Even in work, where wage rate has remained stable, rise in inflation in host country and other factors have led to the volume of earnings going down."

The major sufferers of decline in wage are unskilled laborers, who work at the lowest wage rate and face tough competition in the job market, he stated.

However, the condition of skilled laborers is more satisfactory than the unskilled ones, he said.

Source: Xinhua