May 24, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 07, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 23: Relying on the labour force survey of the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), the Ministry of Labour and Manpower has stated that unemployment in the country has declined to 6.2 per cent in 2005-06 from 8.3 per cent in 2001-02.

The ministry responded to a news item published in Dawn that was based on an Asian

Development Bank (ADB) report which stated that though the overall unemployment in the country has declined in 2001-02 and 2003-04, yet the unemployment rate in the last two years was higher than in the eight-year period from 1990 to 1998.

The ministry has claimed that the labour force survey of FBS is the latest, according to which, the unemployment rate has reduced from 6.7 per cent to 5.4 per cent among males and from 16.5 per cent to 9.3 per cent among females during the period 2001-02 and 2005-06.

The unemployment rate has decreased from 9.8 per cent in 2001-02 to 8 per cent in 2005-06 in the urban areas. In rural areas, it has declined from 7.6 per cent in 2001-02 to 4.5 per cent during this period.

The ADB report stated that the overall unemployment rate has declined from 8.3 per cent in 2001-02 to 7.7 per cent in 2003-04 and there was further decrease expected in unemployment rate

“Despite this reduction, the overall unemployment level in 2003-04 (or even 2005-06) was higher than unemployment rate observed during 1990-98. The decline in unemployment between 2001-02 and 2003-04 was not even across region and provinces, but in large cities and rural areas, while in small and medium cities, the unemployment levels remained almost unchanged,” states the ADB report.

The Labour Ministry has said that unemployment in Balochistan has decreased from 7.8 per cent in 2001-02 to 3.2 per cent in 2005-06. In Sindh, it declined from 5.1 per cent to 4.4 per cent and in NWFP from 13.1 per cent to 11.8 per cent during the same period. Unemployment in Punjab has declined to 6 per cent in 2005-06 from 8.5 per cent in 2001-02.

Meanwhile, the ADB, in its own version, has stated that the employment rate has declined from 8.3 per cent in 2001-02 to 7.7 per cent in 2003-04.

The Ministry of Labour has said that the overall unemployment rate was 6.2 per cent in 2005-06.

These figures show that unemployment rate has been higher during the last two years than the period from 1990 to 1998.

According to the government’s own figures, in 1990-91, unemployment was 6.1 per cent, which declined to 5.7 per cent in 1992-93, and further to 4.8 per cent in 1993-94. It went up to

6.1 per cent in 1996-97 and then declined to 5.9 per cent in 1997-98.