ACADEMIA Letters COVID-19 and the Construction Industries in Dhaka, Bangladesh Shafqul Islam, State University of Bangladesh The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was frst reported in Wuhan, China in 2019. This was identifed as the family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. In Bangladesh, COVID-19 case was diagnosed on 8th March, 2020. The government of Bangladesh declared “lockdown” throughout the country from 23 March to 30 May 2020 to prevent further massive infection. The study was conducted to know the impacts (livelihoods and management) of COVID 19 in construction Industries in Dhaka. Construction industries were considered as mega project, consultancy frms and developer frms. The construction industries in Dhaka employed 1.5 million workers through diferent projects. A study mentioned that exceeding 100 million people are employed in the construction. 1 Sarkar (2020) reported that 1.18 million people are working in the construction industries in Dhaka city. A study reported that urban population will be reached at 6 billion by 2045 globally. 2 It assumed next to agriculture, the construction industry has been a major source of em- ployment opportunities (Jekale, 2004). The construction sector is a critical part of the econ- omy of most countries (Ofori, 2006). The client’s satisfaction is also important to receive the completed project within the budgeted cost and estimated time (Altoryman, 2014). The societies are facing psychosocial and socio-economic insecurity due to the loss of lives and livelihoods (Bodrud-Doza et al., 2020). The poor mostly has gone through the socioeco- nomic crisis and mental stress due to the COVID-19 and lockdown. It has further created 1 Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics, 2013. 2 UN Department of Economic and Social Afairs Population Division, 2014 and United Nations Human Set- tlements Programme, 2014. Academia Letters, November 2021 Corresponding Author: Shafqul Islam, ms.du2019@gmail.com Citation: Islam, S. (2021). COVID-19 and the Construction Industries in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Academia Letters, Article 3971. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3971. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0