ISLAMABAD, May 21: Unemployment in the country has been higher during the last two years than the first eight years of the last decade, reveals a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank.

The unemployment situation has deteriorated for youth in Balochistan since 1999-2000. Young people in Balochistan are twice as likely to be unemployed than their counterparts in Punjab.

The youth employment situation in NWFP is not good either.

“These provinces need serious policy interventions to reduce the relative disadvantages in employment opportunities for the youth,” states the bank’s latest report on demographic transition, education and youth unemployment in Pakistan between 1990 and 2006.

Unemployment in Sindh and Balochistan increased during 2001-02 and 2003-04 and the number of jobless people in NWFP more than doubled during 1990-91.

The study reveals that overall unemployment rate in the country declined from 8.3 per cent in 2001-02 to 7.7 per cent in 2003-04. Despite this reduction, the overall unemployment rate in the last two years was higher than the unemployment rates observed during 1990-98.

The highest level of unemployment - 12.9 per cent - was found in NWFP in 2003-04, while the lowest level was in Sindh at 6 per cent. In Punjab and Balochistan, 7 and 8 per cent of the labour force respectively was unemployed during this period.

Punjab has not witnessed any major changes in the level of unemployment over the last one and a half decade.

However, the study shows that Balochistan has suffered a lot when unemployment increased to 8 per cent in 2003-04 that is less than two per cent of the 1990-91 level.

In Sindh, the unemployment level remained low – around three per cent – but jumped to five per cent in 2001-02 and six per cent in 2003-04.

A province-wise analysis shows that Balochistan and the NWFP have recently been left behind in providing employment opportunities to jobless people, particularly to urban males in small and medium towns.

“The benefits of the recent economic growth are, therefore, not evenly distributed in terms of generating employment opportunities,” the report said.

The gender gap of more than 50 per cent in Pakistan’s Labour Force Participation Rate is much higher than the average gap of 35 per cent in South Asia that demonstrates how successful we have been in empowering women economically.