A surfeit of graduates

The answer to a question in the National Assembly has shone a light on a serious and worsening problem, indeed so serious that it may constitute a crisis and one that is difficult to turn around. In simple terms Pakistan has too many university graduates and there are not enough jobs for them. The numbers are startling. There are over 500,000 unemployed graduates according to figures supplied by the Statistics Division to a question from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s MNA Dr Fouzia Hameed. In Islamabad alone, there are 6,776 unemployed graduates — 3,819 men and 2,957 women. In Punjab, there are 310,000, Sindh 97,222, another 83,367 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (where females outnumber males) and 11,000 in Balochistan.

As yet there is no breakdown of this figure by type of degree, but it has long been suspected that there are more doctors than posts in hospitals — which in itself suggests that there should be zero doctor vacancies nationwide. The by-degree breakdown will be available once the results of the 2017 census are finally released in April. It would be of interest to compare this number with the number of unemployed graduates from vocational colleges nationwide, of which it is said there is an insufficiency. Further, does Pakistan need to be building any more universities if for the foreseeable future their graduates stand a good chance of being jobless at the end of their studies — begging the question as to why more vocational colleges are not being built?

The market into which these graduates would apply for jobs has not kept developmental pace with university output, and is not likely to in the foreseeable future. The net effect is going to be to drive the brightest and the best out of Pakistan in search of work. This represents a flight of human capital, a skills and knowledge base that has negative long-term implications for development across every sector. Half a million educated but frustrated unemployed graduates could get very angry indeed.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2018.

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