Government claims on employment, poverty questioned
By Shahid Iqbal
KARACHI, June 9: It was not easy to digest the tall claim of the government that it created 10 million jobs while it failed to justify why still over 37 million people (23 per cent of total population) were living below poverty line.
The State Minister for Finance Omar Ayub Khan in his budget speech mentioned few sectors with number of jobs created. He said 200,000 jobs were created in motorcycle industry, 20,000 in mobile phone industry, 90,000 in IT sector, etc.
However, still reaching the 10 million jobs target looks difficult. The Economic Survey supports the government claim but did not clarify that why still 99 per cent (25 million young people aging below 25) were still unable to contribute in the economy.
“Pakistan is a country with about 25 million youth of 18-25 years age group but a very small percentage 1.7 per cent are able to make contribution in national economy,” said the Economic Survey issued on last Friday.
The minister said that poverty had come down from 34 per cent to 23 per cent. By 2006-07, the population is estimated to have reached 157 million, which means that at least 37 million (23 per cent) people are living below poverty line.
The serious contradiction is obvious from the Economic Survey report which claims that at the moment there is 46.9 million employed labour force in the country, whereas only 3 million workers are unemployed out of 50.05 million total labour force.
Usually an employed person runs a family of at least 4 persons including himself. If 47 million are employed then 188 million people should be under the umbrella of employment.
Then there is no question of poverty in the country. If an employed family also comes under poverty, then the new definition would be required to “justify the existence of poverty” in the country.
