May 3: The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, which was established to deal with many issues related to labour, is now limited to the menial work of  foreign employment.

It seems that this ministry is basically only doing the work of identifying new destinations for foreign employment, signing labor contracts with the employer countries and their renewal, and making the necessary arrangements to send Nepali workers abroad. The recurring problems in the field of foreign employment show that the ministry has not been able to do even this work effectively.

Considering the manpower entering the country's labor market every year and the rising rate of unemployment, the department was established under the Ministry of Industry in 1971 and was required to look after all labor-related problems. Later, the Ministry of Labor was established as a separate ministry in 1981 but it has not achieved its goals even after more than four decades of establishment.

The Ministry of Labor is responsible for enabling the manpower ready for employment with skills so that they can compete in the labor market, prevent child labor, make foreign employment safe, dignified and orderly and use the skills, technology and capital gained from foreign employment to promote domestic employment, etc. However, since it is only doing the job of sending the manpower produced in Nepal every year for foreign employment, it is missing out on other roles and responsibilities to be performed in the field of labor.

Purna Chandra Bhattarai, former secretary of the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security says that the ministry should do three basic things; create an environment for employment in the country, manage foreign employment and guarantee social security of workers.

 “The role of the ministry in creating internal employment while playing a coordinating role between various agencies is weak,” he said. Experts say that the ministry has not been able to work effectively in the field of social security of workers.

Currently, an estimated 500,000 new manpower enter Nepal's labor market every year. The government agency does not have the data on how many of them get jobs in the public and private sectors of the country. But according to the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, 628,000 people went to work abroad in 2022. According to statistics, Nepalese workers go to 178 countries for employment.

According to the National Statistics Office, during the 2021 census, 2,169,000 Nepali were outside the country. Experts say that even though Nepali workers are going to foreign jobs in large numbers, the Ministry of Labor has failed in the matter of proper implementation of the related policies and regulations. According to labor and immigration expert Som Luintel, the policies and rules related to foreign employment have not been properly implemented. Although the matter of bringing in remittances is a priority, the state along with the Ministry of Labor has failed to make good use of them.