Prime Minister Tarique Rahman to make three-day state visit to Japan on 26 October

The International Monetary Fund has warned that artificial intelligence could reduce labour demand in Bangladesh even as a large generation of young people reaches working age, in its October 2026 Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and the Pacific.

The report was presented at a press conference in Bangkok on 15 October, during the IMF and World Bank annual meetings. It estimates that AI could cut Bangladesh's aggregate labour demand by about 2 per cent and projects that the country's population aged 15 to 64 will grow by roughly 12 to 13 per cent between 2025 and 2035, increasing the need for productive jobs.

The findings on educated young people are starker. Nearly 29 per cent of highly educated youth in Bangladesh are unemployed, while about half of the employed highly educated population work in jobs that do not use their qualifications or skills, according to the IMF report. Overall youth unemployment is about 12 to 13 per cent.

The report points to a gap between what educational institutions teach and what employers need, and to the size of the informal sector. Many workers in agriculture and other informal activities have no formal contract, job security or clear path to advancement, so conventional unemployment figures understate how uncertain their work is.

On AI, the IMF analysed about 40 million online job advertisements across 19 Asian economies through April 2026. It found that employer demand in the occupations most exposed to AI fell by nearly 10 per cent relative to less-exposed roles, with coding among the most exposed activities and managing supplier relationships among the least.

Demand for AI skills is rising at the same time. About 6 per cent of Asian firms asked for AI skills in job advertisements, and emerging AI skills such as prompt engineering and building AI agents appeared in roughly 13 per cent of software developer adverts between November 2025 and April 2026, against about 2 per cent for supply managers.

The IMF said the estimates are model-based and do not represent recorded job losses or a forecast for the decade. Its estimated effect on Bangladesh is smaller than on Singapore, Japan and Australia, but larger than on India and Sri Lanka.

The fund called on governments to invest in education, skills and health, to expand retraining and support workers through job transitions, and to build digital infrastructure so that productivity gains from AI are widely shared. It warned that without aligning workers' skills with rapid technological change, Bangladesh's employment challenge could deepen.

Researchers have recorded a cicada species new to Bangladesh, Dundubia annandalei, after field surveys in orchards and plantations across the country.

The study was carried out by Professor Mohammad Abul Manjur Khan of the Department of Entomology at Bangladesh Agricultural University and Kong Wei of Northwest A&F University in China. Indian researcher Babu Saddam and BAU postgraduate student Shahmot Jawad collected field data and specimens. The paper has been published in the international journal Insects.

The team collected 63 specimens in surveys between February and March 2025. They are now preserved at the BAU Entomology Department Museum, and one female was found under a streetlight on the university campus.

The insect turned up in orchards of mango, litchi, dragon fruit, guava, pineapple, banana, jackfruit, lemon and orange. Adult cicadas and their discarded exoskeletons were also found on sal, bamboo, teak and jarul.

Dundubia annandalei is grass-green while alive and turns brown when dried. It resembles Dundubia terpsichore, but a distinctive structural feature of the male separates the two species. Only one species of the genus Dundubia, Dundubia ensifera, had been documented in Bangladesh before.

The researchers used a MaxEnt species distribution model to map habitat suitability. They estimate that about 861,000 square kilometres of the study area is currently suitable, including around 300,000 square kilometres classified as highly suitable and 179,000 as moderately suitable. Rainfall was the most influential factor, with elevation and temperature also important.

Climate projections suggest suitable habitat could expand to roughly 1.752 million square kilometres by 2060 and 1.94 million by the end of the century under a lower-warming scenario, potentially reaching about 2.63 million square kilometres by 2100 under higher warming. The researchers cautioned that these are model-based projections of environmental suitability, not confirmed future distribution or evidence of increased crop damage.

Professor Khan said cicadas are present in fruit orchards across the country, and their loud breeding calls can often be heard around mango trees in summer. The study did not determine how the newly identified species affects agriculture. He said identifying a species is not enough, and its distribution, life cycle, feeding habits and potential economic impact still need investigation, especially as commercial fruit farming expands in the hilly regions.