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| February 23, 2002 | Saturday | Zilhaj 10, 1422 |
Thousands rendered jobless in NWFP
PESHAWAR, Feb 22: The closure of hundreds of industrial units has rendered thousands of people jobless, indicating an alarming rise in the level of unemployment in the NWFP.
Official sources say thousands of skilled labourers have lost their jobs owing to the closure of over 640 units out of a total of 1,970 registered industrial concerns in the province.
Raised with a total capital investment of Rs60 billion, the industrial concerns, including medium and small manufacturing units, provided employment to over 57,000 workers before the drastic close-downs.
“Thousands of the once employed industrial workforce presently stand jobless due to the closure of so many manufacturing units in various parts of the province”, says a senior civil officer.
The failure of the federal and the provincial governments to keep up the industrial pace recorded in the last decade not only undermined several of the sub-sectors hampering overall industrial growth in the province, it also left thousands of workers in the lurch, particularly in the Gadoonamanzai area in the Swabi district.
According to the information collected from the industries department, the number of industrial employees in the province recorded a considerable increase during the last 50 years from just 1,063 in 1947 to over 57,000 in 2000.
With the industrial sector recording marginal growth in the past 50 years, the number of people employed in the industrial sector of the province rose from 1,063 in 1947 to over 11,000 in 1960, over 20,000 in 1970, 26,000 in 1980, over 41,000 in 1990 and over 57,000 by 2000.
The sources say the maximum industrialization in the province occurred during the last decade but the government’s failure to revive the hundreds of sick units not only reduced the impact of the industrialization achieved, it also deprived labourers of jobs in the Gadoonamanzai industrial estate of which over 160 stand closed down.
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