SME is considered as employment Generating
Machine for the following reason:
·
SME sector is the largest
provider of employment in most countries, especially of new jobs.
·
SMEs tend to employ poor and
low -income Workers.
·
SMEs are sometimes the only
source of employment in poor regions and rural areas.
·
There are approximately six million SMEs in Bangladesh, which include enterprises
with up to 100 workers employing a total of 31 million people – equivalent to
40 per cent of the population of Bangladesh aged 15 years and above.
·
SME has huge Employment
generation potential due to labor intensive nature of most of the SME
activities. Between 1986 and 2006, the labor force grew by nearly 3 percent
while employment grew by 2.6 percent. In the small enterprises, employment grew
by 4.8 percent during 1978-1991 and by 5.5 percent during 1991-2001. Employment
growth in the medium enterprises is estimated at 9.6 percent during 1988-2003.
SEDF reports that between 80 percent and 85 percent of the total industrial
employment and 23 percent of the country’s overall employment is accounted for
by the SMEs.