Living in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a hard market for a newcomer to enter, with hiring resting on local networks and experience and English carrying only in certain corners of the working world. The pay is low by any global measure, and while tax leaves it largely untouched and the cost of living is low, a salary here covers the essentials and stops there. It's a place you might come to for the work itself rather than for what the work lets you put away.

Bangladesh is one of the world's great sources of migrants. Some 8.7M Bangladeshis live abroad — the 7th-largest diaspora on earth — concentrated in the Gulf and South Asia, with 2.4M in Saudi Arabia, 2.3 million in India, and a million in the United Arab Emirates. That diaspora has grown 10% over the decade. Set against a population of 173 million, the foreign-born presence at home is comparatively slight, though it still numbers 2.5 million.