Seeking jobs abroad

Around a million Pakistanis are said to have left the country for better work opportunities in 2015 alone against nearly nine million that went abroad looking for jobs in the 46 years since 1971. The thought that immediately strikes one at this steep rise in the number Pakistanis going abroad looking for jobs and that too in a short period of one year, setting a record of sorts, is too disquieting, especially when one takes a closer look at the state of employment in the country.  On the face of it, the exodus seems to represent a brain drain of serious nature. But looking at the broad profile of those who are leaving the country and the destination of most, it appears it is our labour class that is leading the exodus. Seemingly caught between shrinking job opportunities in Pakistan’s labour-intensive economic activities and the expanding labour supply, it seems to be left with no other option but to look for job opportunities abroad. The government seems to have miserably failed to create economic conditions within the country to stop the drain of our workforce.

Textile industrialists in Karachi, forced by a significant decline in the global demand for even low value-added textile goods, are said to have shifted their focus to the stock exchange business instead while those in the iron and steel industry are importing goods from China. Pakistanis have seen work prospects in Gulf countries shrink dramatically in recent years, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. Continued conflict in oil-rich Arab countries, it is feared, would render a large section of Pakistanis jobless who would have no option but to return home, at which point the country would have another economic crisis on its hands. The government, therefore, not only needs to immediately come up with a well thought-out plan to improve economic conditions so as to generate enough job opportunities within Pakistan, it also needs to take concrete measures to safeguard rights of the burgeoning number of overseas Pakistanis, who often face difficulties abroad.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2016.

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