This study examines the stark disconnect between Bangladesh’s rapid economic expansion and its stagnant job creation, where sustained manufacturing growth has triggered a phenomenon of jobless industrialisation. Nearly four-fifths of the country's unemployed are young people with joblessness heavily concentrated among educated youth while automation and rising capital intensity are driving a marked defeminisation of factory work and forcing half the workforce to remain trapped in low-productivity agriculture. The paper highlights how prolonged defensive tariffs and single-sector dependence have created a damaging anti-export bias, stalling industrial diversification and keeping public spending at a critically low 13 per cent of GDP due to an 8 per cent tax-to-GDP ratio. Situating Bangladesh within a global post-neoliberal shift toward state-guided development, the study proposes an employment-centred policy framework that links fiscal reform, human capital investments, and green economic expansion directly to the creation of decent, inclusive work.

Keywords: Jobless Industrialisation, Youth Unemployment, Industrial Diversification, Anti-Export Bias, Fiscal Reform, Decent Employment