ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not only failed to contain growing unemployment rate but witnessed negative wage growth during 2015-16 reveals International Labour Organisation’s Asia-Pacific Employment and Social Outlook 2018. According to report the overall youth unemployment rate reached 4.4 per cent in 2017 from 3.4 per cent in 2010.
The region’s future prospects will require that economic growth go together with a further expansion of decent work, it says. While real wage growth surpassed labour productivity growth between 2010 and 2016 in almost all countries, report tells that increase in wages of employees looked strong in China and Thailand. nevertheless, negative wage growth was witnessed in Pakistan in 2015-16 which is at minus 4.7pc.
Experts have blamed slow rate of job creation in the formal sector against the backdrop of poor private investment and absence of market-oriented education for the situation which overshadowed the high economic growth of more than seven per cent in the last two fiscal years.
According to the ILO report released on November 16, the male youth unemployment stood at 3.3 per cent from 3 per cent in eight years while that of female youth unemployment reached 6.7 per cent from 4.4 per cent during the same period.
The ILO report also said Pakistan (+5.3 points), Bangladesh (+6.4 percentage points and Viet Nam (+3.7 points) were the countries experiencing the most severe worsening of the youth unemployment situation.
In Pakistan’s education sector, 6.6pc of the total female employment in 2016 was well behind the 72.9pc share in agriculture and 12.7pc in manufacturing.
Pakistan having 15.3pc of women working from their homes, and 37pc working on the land (in agriculture) in 2017 is the only country in the region.
Experts pointed out that good governance and ease in doing business could bolster much needed higher private investment and creation of adequate number of jobs in the formal sector.