Promise fulfilled? 5.5 million employed during Imran Khan’s 3-year stint as PM

According to the statistics, the number of employed people in Pakistan climbed to 67.3 million in June 2021, up from 61.7 million at the conclusion of the PMLN’s 5-year term in 2018.

According to a study performed by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the national unemployment rate at the conclusion of the previous fiscal year was 6.3 percent, which was better than the year before but higher than the 5.8 percent reported at the end of the PMLN-led government. The survey has not yet been made public by the Planning Ministry or the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

As per the Ministry of Planning and Development, the survey findings were validated on Wednesday by a technical committee made up of official and independent specialists. For the survey, the PBS covered 6,808 enumeration blocks and 99,904 households.

The inclusion of contributing family workers whose proportion of total employment was greater than one-fifth is a crucial reason for the overall low unemployment rate of 6.3 percent. In three years, the employer share has stayed steady at 1.4 percent. According to the report, employee share fell from 42.4 percent to 42 percent in three years, but the own-account workers’ portion increased to 35.5 percent.

PTI VS PPP, PMLN – Who Created More Jobs?

According to the survey’s findings, 1.84 million jobs were created on average every year between 2018 and 23 – significantly more than the yearly average reported during the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and the PPP governments.

Approximately 6.9 million jobs were created over the five-year tenure of the PPP (2008-13), with an annual average of 1.4 million. In comparison, around 5.7 million jobs were generated during the PMLN’s tenure from 2013 to 2018, an average of 1.14 million per year.

Also read: Imran Khan lashes out at EU envoys

During the PMLN’s five-year reign, the average economic growth rate was much higher than during the PTI’s five-year control. When the world is going through the global pandemic, the country saw a 1% contraction in its Gross Domestic Product for the first time in 70 years during the fiscal year 2019-20.

The results of the survey found that sectoral contributions to job growth were uneven, with the industrial sector accounting for the majority of new positions.

Prime Minister Imran Khan committed to creating 10 million jobs during his stint as PM, and the creation of 5.5 million jobs suggests that the economy might generate 9 million employment opportunities by 2023 if current trends continue.

All people over the age of ten who worked for at least one hour in the previous week were considered employed. However, the employed people’s definition of 10 year’s age was not consistent with Pakistan’s global commitments to end child labor. It’s time to rethink the definition.

According to research provided by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics(PIDE) on the job situation, over 31% of the country’s young were unemployed in 2018-19.

According to the latest survey data, the unemployment rate in the fiscal year 2020-21 was 6.3 percent, which is higher than it was at the end of the PML-N administration. According to the poll, it was lower than the 6.9% observed in the previous survey year.

Province-wise employment opportunities

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent three years ago, but it soared to 8.8 percent last fiscal year, the highest among the four federating units. Punjab’s unemployment rate was 6.8% in the previous fiscal year, up from 6% the previous year. In Sindh, though, it was 3.9 percent last year, down from 4.9 percent three years before. In Balochistan, the unemployment rate was 4.3 percent, somewhat higher than three years prior.

Leading sectors of employment in Pakistan

In terms of sector, the agriculture industry’s percentage of total employment has decreased from 38.5 percent to 37.4 percent in the last three years. However, the industrial sector’s proportion in the economy climbed from 23.7 percent to 25.4 percent. The employment proportion of the services industry fell from over 38 percent to 37.2 percent.

Over 2.5 million jobs were created in the industrial sector during the last three years, compared to 2.1 million during the five-year PML-N period. The agriculture sector added 1.4 million jobs, while the services sector added 1.7 million. Around 4.3 million jobs were created in the services industry during the PMLN’s reign.