Labour market issues
HERE are some facts about our youth and labour markets. Some 26 million-odd five- to 16-year-olds are out of school in Pakistan. The World Bank estimates that around 77 per cent of children who are in schools are ‘learning poor’: they do not have the knowledge/ understanding and skills that they should for their age/ grade. Unemployment is high amongst Pakistan’s educated youth. But, at the same time, it is hard to fill vacant positions as it is not easy to find suitable candidates with the requisite skills. We also continue to have one of the lowest female labour force participation rates.
Emigration numbers are seeing an uptick. The numbers would be higher if other countries were able or willing to take more people from Pakistan. But despite the tough conditions in other countries, millions are trying to leave. Recently, a number of tragic incidents in the Mediterranean have highlighted the extent to which young people from Pakistan are willing to go to in order to reach European countries. People spend hundreds of thousands of rupees to get a chance to reach Europe even illegally. They take tremendous risks to be able to end up in Europe as illegal aliens. This says a lot about the perceived and real lack of opportunities for young people in Pakistan. They clearly do not see a future for themselves here.
A recent news item said that the KP government advertised positions for around 14,000-odd school teachers. More than 86,000 candidates, of at least graduate level, have applied. Of these, some 400 candidates have PhDs.
I am involved with a number of organisations that hire people in the areas of human resources, finance, research, administration and teaching. Every time we advertise, we get tons of applications. It takes a long time to go through all of them. But in the end, we shortlist hardly a handful and when we interview people, many times, we do not get even a single suitable candidate.
We have so many young people in Pakistan. But most of them are uneducated and unskilled.
What is happening here? We have so many young people in Pakistan. But most of them are uneducated and unskilled. They can only work in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in the country or abroad. The returns of even unskilled labour are much higher outside the country. But going abroad legally is hard. So, we have a lot of illegal migration and desperation to leave.
Most of the ‘educated’ in the country have had a poor quality education and their skills do not match their on-paper education or the expectations of employers. When one hires a graduate to work in the office, she is expected to have decent language, writing and communication skills. If she cannot write in correct English, is not familiar with computer basics, does not possess the communication skills needed to work in a professional setting, why would she be hired? And if I have to get a Master’s level graduate for even simple office work, what will happen to all the Bachelor’s level graduates?
The same is true of graduates of skills programmes at different levels of the educational ladder.
In fact, many local and some foreign universities are producing PhDs who do not have the requisite skills, knowledge or understanding required of doctorate degree holders. Though many universities are on the lookout for faculty, there are a few hundred PhDs who are unemployed at the same time. This is not due to subject mismatches — it is not that we have too many PhDs in Pakistan Studies, Islamiat or Urdu, while faculty jobs are available for business studies or computer science. We do have doctors in the relevant fields but the hiring authorities do not find them good enough for the job.
We are clearly in deep trouble and stuck in a poor equilibrium. The trouble is not that we are facing a brain drain. Even higher emigration numbers, given the numbers we have in Pakistan, would not make any difference in terms of brain or brawn. The trouble is that we are not training our brain and brawn to possess the quality standards we need for both domestic and foreign jobs.
Given the potential for remittances, the government would love to send millions of people abroad. Foreign remittances have been rising. They constitute one of the main factors that has kept the Pakistani economy afloat. But we cannot send too many people abroad as there are limits on what countries will accept and what they require, ie mostly educated or skilled people — and we do not have many coming out of Pakistani institutions — who meet international standards. A few medical, engineering, business and other programmes are of decent or good quality, but most are not. On the skills side we fare even more poorly. Degrees from many of our universities are not really thought highly of in most universities and few, if any, of our skills programmes have international certifications.
As long as the quality of our education and skills programmes remains poor, too many individuals will remain out of schools and universities and too many, even if they graduate from schools or universities, will not be able to have productive careers. Meanwhile, employers will not find people with the education and skills they need. They will make do with what is available, and that will affect the overall growth and productivity of the country. We will, of course, not be able to send abroad too many people in the skilled and educated category. The key here is quality: quality of education and quality of skills programmes. We have to resolve the quality issue on a priority basis.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.
Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2025