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An editor of a paper once published an editorial saying that half of the city’s population is insane.
Needless to say, there was a bit of an uproar.
The editor had no choice but to run a correction.
The next day, the correction read: Half of the city’s population isn’t insane.
The difference, of course, was the same, but a slight twist of semantics meant that it went unnoticed.
What happened recently in Pakistani politics was rather similar.
In his 100 Day plan, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan promised the creation of 10 million jobs over the next five years if his party came to power.
Not to be outdone, Pakistan People’s Party’s Asif Zardari promised one government job for each family without a member in government service.
The PTI was ridiculed on social media and by other parties for making such a tall promise; however, Zardari, who actually made a much bigger claim, was spared the derision.
One can assume that this was due to a simple contextual change of arithmetics by Zardari that made his promise sound more realistic.
The fact is that both parties appear to be ignorant of the state of Pakistan’s economy and its capacity to generate these many jobs in such a short period of time.
After debt servicing, expenditure on defence and general administration, the government’s leftover budget is not sufficient for Pakistan’s development ambitions.
The population of Pakistan is 207.8 million. It has 32.2 million households, with average household size of 6.5 as per the 2017 census.
If they are to deliver on their claims, the PTI must must create one job per 21 residents. The PPP, for its part, has bigger mountain to climb: creating one job per six residents.
PPP’s job target for the next five years is 3.25 times higher than that of the PTI’s.
Even though Zardari promised jobs for those households that don't already have a member in government service, the overall figures for the PPP won't be much different since state jobs, including armed forces, don't make up large enough portion of the total jobs in Pakistan to be of arithmetical consequence in this scenario.
These projections are based on last year's census data. With the passage of the next five years, the numbers are only expected to increase — along with the job targets.
Let’s break it down even more: for every other minute, the PTI must create four jobs; the PPP: 12
This means that, every hour for the next five years, the PTI must create 228 jobs and the PPP, 735 jobs.
And I am sure that both parties are aware that job creation warrants a transparent procedure of advertisement, competition, tests, interviews, administrative routines and approvals.
In case of government services, medical examination from services hospitals and police verification and the rest are added tasks.
How are these parties going to manage this Herculean task for which the state machinery simply isn’t prepared? Are jobs Manna from heaven?
45 percent of Pakistan’s existing labour force works on agricultural farms. The glaring issue is that no decent increase in productivity has occurred over time while labour has been added to existing agriculture workforce. This results in disguised unemployment.
Disguised unemployment occurs when land’s productivity/yield is constant and more labour is added, which means additional labour has nothing to contribute in terms of productivity. This additional labour is unemployed in the disguise of family ‘employment’ on farms.
The statistics don’t factor this form of unemployment, which means that actual unemployment in the country is higher than what’s reported. If the parties are to take into account disguised unemployment, the size of their task will be even bigger.
Instead of empty election-time rhetoric, both PTI and PPP should think seriously about the existing issues and their solutions. They are in no position to deliver on what they have promised, at least in a meaningful way. Voters don’t deserve to be shown a mirage.
Header illustration by Zoha Bundally
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Asim Bashir Khan is an economist and has previously served the government of Sindh on energy, investment, trade, public policy, and reforms. He focuses on federalism and fiscal reforms in Pakistan, and is currently at the IBA, Karachi. He tweets at @AsimBashirKhan1
The views expressed by this writer and commenters below do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
Comments (16) Closed
This is such an amateur article about job creation. I understand that both PTI and PPP may have made tall claims. But the premise of this whole article is that the all households in Pakistan are currently unemployed and this is the only way they will get employment.
Purely from a mathematical point of view you might have missed the fact that Mr.10% promising 1 govt job per family will probably not include the families which already have someone in a govt job. PS: Zardari does not care about Pakistan, he wants all government departments to become like PIA, dysfunctional and extremely expensive.
When IK announced a billion trees in KP, everybody took out their calculator, saying this cannot be done. When IK decided to build a cancer hospital, everybody said when the state of Pakistan did not build a hospital where free of cost treatment is available, how can an individual can?
Thank you for some rational thinking.
only way to create some jobs by building dams and roads
In the last 4 years of Obama's administration 10.3 million jobs were created in the US. The PTI projections are not necessarily unrealistic, however what is missing is the plan on how to achieve this.
Arguably, PPP's proposal is more easily achievable as they could simply bankrupt the country by creating useless positions within various Govt departments.
The choice voters have is between a party that makes bold promises to better the entire country and the other that makes bold promises to bribe the entire country with government 'job'.
Jobs are not commodities needs to be manufactured at 4/minute rates. Consider this, if all schools across sind become functional, How many teaching jobs created, if 100,000 family health care units established, they will create jobs for 200,000 to 300,000 doctors, 400,000 nurses 100,000 compounders,200,000 medical aids, 100,000 gatekeepers, 100,000 ambulance drivers. Where the money will come from ? Just look at the government expenditures, it's already been spend on made up expenses. Only proper educated policy, which brings private sector investment into public service can generate millions of jobs.
Problem in Pakistan is not of funds, it is lack of policy and vision. The PML-N and PPP Governments has tried nothing, no educated policy, to indirectly or directly, resolve issues of Pakistan. They come in power, look for money in hand and possible funds from abroad, all they could think of megaprojects, handouts, they enjoy giving out contracts and pocketing kikbacks, projects yield any results for people of Pakistan, it was not even in question. First time in Pakistan a man is talking about improving life of people through policies not projects give him a chance. If there is a sick in your house, if no food on the table, you do not go out and buy fridge or large screen tv on loan. This is what we had been doing. Mega projects do not increase productivity, efficient water distribution, increasing manufacturing, better education and low cost health does. Pakistan needs policies, good governance, focus on improving the existing system, the market itself will create a lot more jobs.
Did the PMLN delivered in meaningful way, ending load shedding in six months, bullet train, recovering looted money from zardari, no more loan from IMF, makin PIA profitable, lahore Paris etc.
Had the time spent in studying past instead of doing this mathematics, it would have been revealing that this tall claim of creating 10mn jobs is actually a possibility. When Nawaz’s Govt. left in 1999, Pakistan’s economy was in a similar state as it is today and despite this, Musharraf era created 12mn jobs. 10mn jobs in 5 years does not seem far fetched if you manage to grow your GDP by more than 5% and take necessary steps. As per United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report 2017, Pakistan needs to generate 0.9mn jobs every year for the next 30 years, without interruption to maintain unemployment at the current levels. So what is more challenging? 10mn jobs in 5 years or 0.9mn jobs for the next 30 years without interruption?
This is a new edition of so called "Billion Tree Tsunami" promise by PTI and new edition of "Roti Kapra aur Makaan" promise by PPP.
Both parties think that people may be fooled but the time has changed. People want delivery that has not been shown during their past regime.
Problem lies in governance by representative of people who own their people and land which this nation is bereft of since 1947.
Most of Pakistani politicians, bureaucrats & generals have their properties grabbed form this country on off shore resulting into huge vacuum of confidence for budding investor.
In this sordid scenarios from top to bottom of social fabric is looking for the green pastures rendering this part of land to "nature" for amelioration, which never happens in real world. So we need to learn, as a nation, that nothing is impossible if ardent and honest striving is made to alleviate our suffering.
Excellent analysis that exposes the hollow promises made by dishonest politicians.
Even if IK and others are making exaggerated claims about employment generation, there is a good reason for it. It helps them win elections because our average voter is not wooed by statistics, but rhetoric and slogans. Any party that bases their claims on evidence will suffer a huge loss in the elections. This holds for most countries of the world.
@sab Where are billion trees by the way? Yes, Cancer hospital is a reality but it has also been exploited by Khan for his personal gains.
The math is simple. There cannot be 100 % employment as long as there are more candidates and lower number of opportunists, even if opportunities continue to grow over time at a lower rate than the number of applicants. China instituted some harsh measures to try to balance the equation. I am sure that will not be possible in Pakistan with so many selfish politicians vying for positions. Those who have been in position have not done much either to alleviate the problems. Still I can give PTI a chance to try something better than PML-N or PPP in the past.