HYDERABAD, Oct 7: The general secretary of the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Workers Federation, Abdul Latif Nizamani, said on Tuesday that continued state of unemployment was leading to development of criminal tendencies among the country’s jobless youths.

He said at a seminar on “Job with dignity for all”, which was organised to mark the International Day for Job with Dignity for All that at least five million youths were unemployed in the country and thousands others were added to the list every year.

He said that job with dignity was a wishful thinking in Pakistan and the situation had further aggravated in the absence of any arrangements for skill development.

He said that 35 per cent of the total population of the country was living below poverty line. The government should make serious efforts for the development of agriculture and industry to create jobs for the unemployed, he urged.

Mir Khan Baloch said that instead of sliding down, the prices of essential consumer goods increased manifold with the restoration of democracy in the country.

Mohammad Iqbal Kaimkhani said that the poor were committing suicide and even offering their children for sale due to poverty, hunger and unemployment. Job with dignity in Pakistan had become a misnomer because even a job without dignity was not available, he added.

He said that many factories remained closed and the workers were being deprived of their wages. Labour laws were found only in the statute books but never implemented, he said.