New centre set up to help with career counselling

Skills, education differences explain higher wages of Indian workers, says labour secretary

LAHORE: “The Migrant Resource Centre will work with TEVTA and organisations of its ilk to develop workers’ skills and help them plan their careers once they go abroad,” Manager Shehzad Bokhari said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at a meeting convened to shed light on the centre’s operations. Bokhari said the centre would coordinate with government agencies, departments, NGOs and recruitment agencies.  He said the centre would also liaise with deportees and other workers returning home to obtain their feedback regarding the challenges they confronted.

Bokhari said the material being developed was relevant to select countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE where migration rates for jobseekers tended to be higher. South Asian Labour Migration Governance Project National Programme Officer Sadia Hameed said the centre had finished recruiting staff and would start training workers soon.

Labour and Human Resource Secretary Ishrat Ali praised the ILO’s support for establishing the centre. He highlighted the role that the centre would play in revamping the national economy. Ali said the nation had received $18 billion in remittances from workers based abroad this year. He said workers’ remittances had enabled Pakistan to grow at the macro-level and had also made their households more stable financially.

“Manpower is one of the greatest resources that the nation can export,” Ali said. He said the centre would help add value to workers going abroad by providing relevant skills. “Workers from India are paid twice as much as Pakistanis because they tend to be more educated and skilled,” he said.



ILO Country Director Francesco D’ovidio said he concurred with the Labour Department’s vision for the centre. He said this was the second centre of its kind to be established in Pakistan with the organisation’s support. D’ovidio said one had been earlier established in Islamabad.

“Networking and coordinating is one of the challenges,” he said, emphasising the need to ensure that they constituted an integral part of the centre’s operations. D’ovidio also called for ensuring that the centre functioned in accordance with ILO standards. “It is crucial that the centre continues to formulate a long term policy and ascertain labour trends abroad,” he said.

Workers going abroad will be imparted training on all aspects of their jobs, cultural differences, healthcare and relevant legal provisions. Additionally, the centre will run an online complaint registration system. The system will be available in Urdu. This will make it more worker-friendly. Material printed in Urdu sheds lights on laws of host countries that protect workers and regulate issues of health insurance and work permits. It also educates workers regarding their responsibilities and includes a list of organisations that can assist them in the case of any untoward situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2015.