Increasing inflation, unemployment and poverty remained the biggest concerns for Pakistanis with a majority of the population viewing economy going in the wrong direction but the overall perception has gradually started improving, a new opinion poll reveals.
About 70% of the most worrying issues for Pakistanis relate to their financial miseries, according to an Ipsos opinion survey released on Wednesday.
Survey results showed that a majority of the people were not happy with the way things were handled. But the number of people viewing things adversely has started declining.
People were somewhat not seeing any improvement in the local economy. About 57% said that they were expecting either weaker or much weaker economy in the next six months.
People were questioned about their confidence in the economy, their opinion on the current situation compared to a year earlier, investment decisions, job prospects and the most worrying issues for them.
Increasing inflation was the biggest concern for 34% of the respondents, according to the survey. A year ago, 29% people had said that increasing inflation was the most worrying issue.
Increasing inflation was also the most worrying issue in provinces. In Sindh, 32% of respondents were worried by the inflation while in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 40% of respondents said that inflation was the biggest concern for them - the highest ratio in any province.
About 22% of respondents said unemployment was the biggest concern for them - a level that was better than a year ago. Increasing poverty was the third biggest concern for 14% of respondents - a ratio that was just 6% a year ago.
Unemployment also remained the second most worrying issue in three provinces, except for Balochistan where it was the third big concern.
The coronavirus, which had crippled global and Pakistan’s economy, was the fourth in the list as 10% of respondents said the virus was one of the worrying issues.
About 12% of respondents said the economy was strong - a ratio that was 5% a year ago. This shows that the confidence of people in the economy has started improving.
About half of the respondents - 51% - said the economy was neither very weak nor strong. For the remaining 37% of respondents, the economy was weak - a ratio that was better than a year ago, according to Ipsos.
Only 23% of respondents believe that the country was heading in the right direction - a ratio that was 21% a year ago. For 77% of respondents, the country was heading in the wrong direction.
Pakistan’s economic condition has remained fragile for the past many years and things have deteriorated in the last over two years, except for improvement in the current account deficit. While discussing the current economic situation, only 3% believed that the current economic situation was very good. Another 23% said that the situation was “somewhat good”. For the remaining 74%, the current economic situation was either somewhat bad or very bad.
Just 4% of respondents said that they were very satisfied with the ways things were going in the country while another 26% said that they were somewhat satisfied.
The remaining 71% were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied - a ratio that was 77% a year ago.
People are not willing to make personal investment decisions for the next six months due to an overall low trust in the economy, according to the poll.
About 36% of respondents said that their personal finance situation was weak and another 51% said that it was neither strong nor weak. Over half of the respondents said that their expected financial position would remain weak in the next six months.
As many as 83% of respondents were less confident about their job security and 48% said that they lost job as a result of economic conditions. Another 14% feared that they could lose jobs in the next six months.
On the question of making investment decisions, 91% of respondents said they would not make any major purchases in the next six months.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2020.
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