ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: The International Labour Organisation on Thursday said labour market vulnerability for female workers in Pakistan has increased, while it has decreased for their male counterparts.

The increase indicates that the jobs for women are of poor quality.

“An investigation of labour market groups shows that vulnerability decreased by 5.0 percentage points for males but increased by 6.5 points for females,” said ILO’s annual Global Employment Trends report (GET).

Women constitute about 20 per cent of the country’s labour force with 8.4 per cent of the women population participating in civilian labour force.

Vulnerable employment is an indicator to assess decent work deficits.

The reason attributed to the upward trend in vulnerability of the female labour force is an increase in the number of female contributing family workers.

At the national level, vulnerable employment is associated with illiteracy in Pakistan.

A breakdown by economic sector demonstrates that vulnerability is often reduced in sectors leading recent employment growth, such as manufacturing, trade and construction. The financial sector was an exception, as employment growth in this sector was accompanied by an increasing share of vulnerable employment. However, given the nature of this sector, with the lowest rate of illiteracy of all economic sectors, this increase is unlikely to reflect a growing decent work deficit, the report said.

It said South Asia was the leader in jobs growth during 2007, contributing 28 per cent of the nearly 45 million jobs created during the year worldwide. At the same time, the region has the highest share of vulnerable employment much of which reflects the poor quality of jobs created. More than seven out of 10 people are either own-account workers or contributing family workers, carrying a higher risk of being unprotected, without social security and without a voice at work.

In terms of vulnerable employment as a share of total employment, South Asia, with a rate of 77.2 per cent, was followed by sub-Saharan Africa at 72.9 per cent, South-East Asia and the Pacific at 59.4 per cent, East Asia at 55.7 per cent, Latin America and the Caribbean at 33.2 per cent, Middle East at 32.2 per cent and North Africa at 30.7 per cent.

Commenting on the report, an ILO official said: “What is apparent is that economic progress doesn’t automatically translate into new and decent jobs. This shows once again that labour market policies must be at the centre of macroeconomic policies to ensure that economic growth is inclusive and that development involves good, decent work. The current economic situation is, therefore, a cause for significant concern and the ILO will monitor developments closely over the coming year.”