ISLAMABAD:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that unemployment in Pakistan is much higher than the official claim of 6 per cent as the experts urge the government to convert the increasing young people into dividend for the country by creating right job opportunities.
Adnan Mazarei, the IMF’s Washington-based Mission Chief for Pakistan has said that unemployment has become a big problem for the country and the official figures do not reflect reality. To a question he said “It certainly is higher than (6 per cent official rate)”. He said this figure does not capture the partially employed and household workers who are not paid.
According to the Labour Force Survey, 27.7 per cent of the total labour force consists of contributing family workers - people who work without pay in cash or in kind. If this figure is added into the official unemployment figure, the rate would skyrocket to 33.7 per cent.
He said there are about a couple of million people who enter the labour force every year and to accommodate them seven per cent per annum growth is required. He said that the 3 to 4 per cent per annum growth rate is making it difficult to create jobs.
Meanwhile, the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Islamabad office held a conference on human development to sensitise the government and policy makers about the importance of human development in reducing unemployment and poverty.
Converting demographic transition into a dividend was fast becoming a challenge due to low spending on education, health and vocational training, said Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, Dean of Business School of NUST.
“The government has a choice either invest in people or pay lip service and that will make young people destructive citizens of the country”, he added. Khan argued that given the age structure of Pakistan’s population where 50 per cent are below the age of 20 years, the country has no option but to invest in people.
Toshihiro Tanaka, the Resident Representative of the UNDP urged the government to reduce poverty and improve progress towards Millennium Development Goals. He argued that in some cases, Pakistan is ahead of others in indicators but that it is lagging behind in many indicators. Hence, Pakistan must redouble its efforts to achieve the MDG targets.
Dr Akram Sheikh, former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission announced that NUST and the UNDP, along with the HDR office, New York have agreed in principle to set up the NUST Human Development Studies, based in its Business School. The purpose of setting up this centre at NUST is to conduct quality research on various aspects of human development.
An Advisory Board will be set up under the chairmanship of Rector, NUST with persons of international repute working in the areas of human development brought in as members. An annual conference will be held on human development under the auspices of the newly established NUST Human Development Studies Centre.
It has been further agreed that annual Human Development Awards will be given to those scholars who have contributed to the fields of human development. Post-doctoral fellowship will also be awarded by the UNDP/HDR Office for those who intend to work in the field of human development. The UNDP will also provide internship to the students of the NUST.
The participants of the conference asked the government to improve the education standards as the educational institutions are not imparting the right kind of education. They said this has been contributing in increasing the unemployment ratio.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 8th, 2012.
COMMENTS (7)
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@ayesha khan:
You are right. If memory serves me, they did change the definition in Mush's days to show a brighter picture. but employment was not the only macro indicator they changed!
@meekal ahmed:
Meekal saab, it looks like the issue is in the design of the employment survey as indicated by the commentator ajpirzada. The most likely reason is a deliberate intent to understate the unemployment levels. In India (where I hail from) also there was massive disguised unemployment (people working on family farms being counted as employed). Thus a farm that perhaps needs only 2 workers would be supposedly 'employing' 5 people.
The problem with such fudging is that when things become really bad, there is no way to gauge the severity of distress. Also - as is currently happening in India, a lot of people have moved from unpaid farm work to paid factory/construction work in the last 20 years yet no government is able to take credit for it by claiming a reduction in the unemployment rate since these people were never reported to be unemployed to begin with.
Finally, I recall that Pakistan claimed in the Musharraf era that the highest number of jobs was created in the South Asia region in Pakistan. I had read an Opinion piece later where someone stated that the maximum number of 'new jobs created' was in the category of household help' for family business who were paid neither in cash nor kind.
unemployment in kp and balochistan are more than 20%.
imagine doing such basic research after 64 years? Did this matter not strike anyone before?
How can an official institution....even in bizzaro twilight zone pakistan, state that unemployment here is 6%?!?! this is the same as saying pak economy is larger than india's economy.....
Unemplyment in Pakistan at 6% This has to be a joke really.
even the person who published this number knows it. however, the problem is not in the calculation but with the designing of the labor force survey. The way questions are structured automatically result in answers which lead to such a low unemployment rate.