05 January 2004	Monday	12 Ziqa'ad 1424

The problem of unemployment is a global phenomenon. Even highly developed economies are not immune from this menace. Despite negative population growth in many European countries most of them are finding it difficult to cope with the rising number of unemployed people.

Germany, the third largest economy in the world, has an unemployment rate of about 11 per cent, while in France it is 8.8 per cent, in Italy it is 9.2 per cent, and in Spain it is 11.4 per cent.

In the Asian sub-continent, the unemployment problem is becoming deadlier with every passing day. In all the Saarc countries, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, unemployment is showing a continuous upward trend.

According to a recent report, for some 20,000 gauge men jobs in the Indian railways ministry, the number of applicants was five million i.e. for every post 250 candidates applied. The duty of the gauge men was only to patrol the tracks and to check the condition of the rails. The candidates were not supposed to submit any school-leaving certificate. But among the applicants were hundreds of graduates, postgraduates, MBAs and engineers.

In Pakistan, the situation is not different either. While the market-oriented reforms may have achieved some milestones in the economy, the job market, nevertheless, has been shrinking day by day. For every petty job the number of applicants is simply baffling. For example, recently for six vacancies of lower-division clerk in a pure government office in Islamabad, more than 6,000 candidates reportedly applied and appeared for tests.

The candidates flocked to Islamabad from various parts of the country. Although they knew their chances were almost zero, they decided to try their luck out of despair.

Recently, the Federal Public Service Commission had to conduct a country-wide examination for about 29,000 applicants who had applied for 75 posts of Income Tax Officer in the Revenue Division, giving a ratio of 1:386.

Similarly, for a few posts in the State Bank of Pakistan more than 11,000 candidates applied recently. This simply indicates the degree of desperation and frustration among the young generation. At present, thousands of highly qualified professionals, doctors and IT experts are without job and looking for ways to make both ends meet.Pakistan has a population of about 150 million at present, and a third of them are in the working-age group. Thus, about 50 million working-age population is in the job market.

According to some estimates, 14-15 million young willing workers in Pakistan are jobless. A large number of job seekers are even taking risks for dangerous ventures in the inhospitable overseas posts. Many overseas job seekers are often robbed by the fake and unscrupulous recruiting agents.

Newspapers regularly publish horrifying tales of many Pakistanis who died while crossing barbed fences and dangerous rivers and freezing seas in European countries. Sometimes illegal immigrants are packed in airtight containers, in large numbers, to deceive the immigrant officials. But in most cases they die due to suffocation on their way to their destination.

During the British rule in the sub-continent, Muslims were far behind Hindus, Parsies and other non-Muslims, in the education field, jobs in the government departments, in the armed forces, or in the education ministries as teachers. But despite that very few educated Muslims were jobless.

After partition most of the teachers and technical staff who largely comprised non-Muslims left Pakistan, creating a big vacuum. So all types of job opportunities were available to the educated Muslim population. In the far-flung areas, especially in the primary schools, matriculate teachers were very rare. Mostly non-matric teachers did the teaching in the primary and lower middle schools in rural areas.

In the 1950s Pakistan was passing through the most difficult part of its economic history as productive activities were at nascent stages. But despite that most of the job seekers, with even minimum qualification could be absorbed, either in government departments or in the private sector.

As a result of successful implementation of the first and second five-year plans, the job market remained quite accommodative in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1970s for every petty job, the number of candidates applied was in the range of 5 to 10. The ratio slightly increased in the 1980s.

The job scarcity became the most challenging problem since the beginning of 1990s, mostly due to economic stagnation, disinvestment, closing/ selling out of loss-making public sector corporations and privatization of some commercial banks. Downsizing and rightsizing also added to the number of unemployed.

With the growing size of population and increasing number of skilled and non-skilled work force, the problem of unemployment is becoming more complicated and compounding. The shrinking public sector and the small private sector are simply not capable of absorbing the rapidly growing number of job seekers. This single national phenomenon is creating many alarming side-effects which are quite harmful to the family setup and the state.What are the economic and social costs of 15 million unemployed people who are ready to work and capable of contributing to the national development programmes.

Their economic cost is billions of working hours' loss, equivalent to hundreds of billions of rupees per annum. Prolonged deprivation and despondency among a large number of young people can lead to anarchy. A large number of educated young people, after having lost all hopes, are turning to anti-social activities, including theft, robbery, killing and other heinous crimes.

Desperation and economic deprivation are believed to be the major factors behind increasing number of suicides, killings, and property disputes within families. In addition, overall depression level and psychological diseases are on the rise.

With marked improvement in major macroeconomic variables, enhanced economic and investment activities and availability of the all-time largest bank deposits, ready to be loaned out at a reasonable rate of return, it is time to address the problem of unemployment in a comprehensive manner.

The current poverty reduction programme of the government should assign top priority to income and employment generation activities and rehabilitation schemes for the young and working-age people.