There is no dearth of concern for employment generation in the country. Even though the policy makers boasted of a high rate of growth at 6.4 per cent last fiscal year (FY04)
, the officially stated rate of unemployment also increased to 8.27 per cent% in the same year.
This does not even account for disguised unemployment and discouraged workers who stop looking for jobs as they think none are available. If underemployed and discouraged workers were also taken into account, the rate of actual unemployment would be a lot higher.
Further, by definition, the employed include "all persons ten years of age and above who worked at least one hour during the reference period and were either 'paid employed' or 'self employed.'"
The Pakistan Labour Survey 2001-02 uses one week (seven days before the date of enumeration) as the reference period. So, if "employment" is defined as a minimum of only one hour of work in the week before the date of enumeration, the rate of unemployment of even 8.27 per cent is clearly understated.
The problem of unemployment in Pakistan is a lot more humongous than what the cautiously prepared statistics narrate. For, they even tend to include the work of those below the age of 15 to inflate the level of employment.
If children have to commence work at around ten , then this clearly shows the level of underemployment or unemployment of their adult parents. Accurate statistics on the employed children would point towards the underemployment or unemployment of adults.
Unemployed are all those who are not engaged for 40 hours of work per week. If people are engaged for less than 40 hours per week, they are not fully employed and are, therefore, underemployed.
To treat the underemployed as employed is to grossly overstate the level of employment or to understate the level of unemployment. Thus far, the above work shows that the rate of unemployment is understated on two counts.
That is, it includes the work of children which should actually indicate the lack of work of their adult parents. Secondly, treatment of the underemployed as employed is another exaggeration of the level of employment.
Third, an economy that cannot generate enough hours of work for all the adults to keep them fully engaged is also not able to harness all the skills, qualifications, and capabilities there are in the society.
So, the qualified may be employed for all the hours they can possibly work, but if their capabilities are underutilized or if they are overqualified for the jobs they are engaged in, they too are underemployed.
This aspect may not be captured in the unemployment formula but it is an essential one to know so as to fully gauge the discarded or unutilized productive potential in the country. This, in turn, would be a reflection on the extent of the development or the underdevelopment of the economy, the growth rates notwithstanding.
A fourth gauge of underemployment is of those who are engaged and paid for 40 hours a week, but they are not made to work for that long as there is either not enough work for them in the organization or they do not want to work even if there is a lot of work that can be done during the time they are paid for.
This is typical of many public sector organizations where either the managements are not creative or not efficient or both which attitudes cascade down the organizations. To term such "employed" as employed for purposes of economic growth and development is to downplay the issue of unemployment of the human resources found in abundance in the country.
While real economic growth is the growth in the productive potential of the country, we take heart even if only actual output increases even below the potential and the existing capacity is better utilized.
This increase in actual production or better capacity utilization is termed as economic growth which tends to conceal the extent to which the country's resources remain unutilized.
As focus remains only on the rate of growth, however that may be, the issue of employment of the human resources the country is endowed with is displaced and is treated superficially, if at all, and that too at its first level of analysis only. That is, to engage the ones not even engaged partially in remunerative work.
At the policy making level, the issue is treated even more perfunctorily in the following manner. For every new project that comes up and for every new policy decision made, it is said en passi, "it will generate jobs and people will get 'rozgaar.'"
Obviously, all new projects and programmes generate new jobs which should actually go without saying. What is important to deal with is to engage the sea of unemployed human resources without which target growth rates may be achieved or even surpassed but national economic development will not result as this development is not just 'development' of roads, bridges, parks, ports, deserts, or any other physical infrastructure for that matter.
Rather, national development is development of the people who require the basic necessities of life first and foremost to get on to the development path. Development of people is not possible unless and until they are employed and engaged.
Many wealthy take the charity view of development. More zakat, more donations, and more personal givings in their view would lead to the uplift of the deprived. The importance of givings in a deprived society notwithstanding, mere reliance on the charity concept would continue to create demand for more charity givings by virtually legitimizing accumulation in the hands of a few at the expense of all other stakeholders of the countries' micro constituents in the economy.
Equitable distribution at the micro levels would not only be alleviating deprivation but would also be reducing demand for charity. The issue of engaging the unemployed would still remain.
Some are of the view that large infrastructure projects would generate employment and this is how employment was generated even in the USA during some lean periods. While infrastructure projects do generate employment, the assumption behind this approach is as was also the case in the USA that the infrastructure investment will have a tractive effort on the economy which will rev up by the time the projects approach completion.
The disengaged from the infrastructure projects would then be engaged in the revived formal economy whose unemployment levels will be around the natural rate of unemployment. Since the chances of our formal economy revving up to this extent are bleak, we will only be postponing our issue of unemployment by taking the infrastructure projects' route only.
Emphasis is also placed on labour-intensive industry. Since our industry either caters to international markets or affluent segments of the domestic market, quality-competitiveness is required.
Private investor rationality then demands capital- and technology-intensity which is labour-saving and labour-displacing. In a country where industry was set up per force in the absence of widespread domestic demand due to a lack of purchasing power resulting from unemployment and poverty, industry cannot be expected to generate jobs at a rate fast enough to absorb the labour force growth.
Labour should then be absorbed at places where it is generated and concentrated the most. That is, there should be emphasis on employment generation in rural-agricultural areas.
To then talk of labour-saving, capital- and technology-intense corporate farming as a solution to the issue of rural unemployment is to look the other way from this grave issue.
It is also said that higher agricultural growth rates would address the issue of rural unemployment when efforts with regards to increase in agricultural growth rates or productivity enhancement are focused on the landed farmers already within the formal agricultural system.
Their private rationality also demands capital-intensity which is labour displacing. It is then suggested that small scale cottage industry will engage the displaced. While it will absorb some, the issue of the multitude of unemployed will remain.
The issue of integrating those in cottage industry on the fringes will remain too as will the issue of two Pakistans-one for those in the mainstream and the other for those on the margins and on the sidelines.
While piecemeal "solutions" such as those of corporate farming or increase in agricultural growth rates/productivity or cottage industry will engage some, the issue of unemployment is not the issue of some, but of the many, unemployed for whom it will not be resolved without changing the land tenure system however impractical it may sound to those whose vested interest is in status quo.
For those with the goal of change without change, status quo is both the means and the end. The issue should be viewed and dealt with at its appropriate problem-solving level, at least, at the conceptualization stage by those who envision for eventual realization at an unknown point in time. For, if they even cease to conceptualize, envision, and throw up likely solutions; the problem is not likely to be resolved ever.
