Shifting sands for expat labour

Making the assumption that the greatest challenge faced by the state of Pakistan is that of extremism and its bedfellow terrorism would be a mistake. There are other threats that are existential in ways that the state is unable to influence, the looming water crisis being one. Another and more immediate is the shift in global energy needs and prices which is leading directly to a drop in the number of Pakistanis employed in the states of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf generally. For decades, Pakistan has exported manpower to the region, but that flow has been suddenly interrupted. The most marked drop is in Saudi Arabia where in the first six months of 2017 only 17 per cent of the total workers went to the kingdom as compared to the whole of 2016. The numbers are startling. There were 77,600 workers sent to Saudi Arabia between January and June 2017, as compared to 462,598 in the whole of 2016.

Employment is linked to the oil industry and with global prices slumped and little prospect of an early recovery the prospects are grim in terms of the drop in remittances on which the country relies but which are showing a decline after 13 years of growth. Inflows from Saudi Arabia alone dropped by 8.3 per cent in the last fiscal year.

At risk is the current account deficit that is propped up by remittance monies with $5.4 billion received in 2016-17. The chances of maintaining a forex reserve equivalent to three months of import cover are fading, a fact noted by both the World Bank and the IMF recently. Exports have been in decline for four years — the entire life of the sitting government — and unemployed Pakistanis are steadily returning to the homeland where they will remain jobless and penniless. It is likely that over a quarter-million have returned in the last two years. This cohort is an obvious potential pool of social unrest. The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated and we look to the government to urgently formulate a strategy to increase or diversify the export of manpower. Unfortunately the political classes have other things on their collective minds. Dark times ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2017.

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