LAHORE: People’s Labour Bureau, the labour wing of the PPP, has condemned the elimination of 37,314 vacancies in five different departments of Punjab, calling it a harbinger of anarchy.

In a statement, Bureau In-charge Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed said that on the one hand, inflation was being imported on the dictates of the IMF and on the other hand, the devastation of floods had paralysed the economy. In such a situation, the flood of unemployed people from Gulf countries due to the Middle East conflict and the elimination of employment within the country would prove to be a big disaster, he added.

He said that the Punjab government had closed the doors of employment to the educated class by approving the elimination of more than 30,000 vacancies in the education department, 5,199 in the agriculture department and thousands of vacancies in other departments.

Mr Manzoor stressed that the rulers should stop wasting billions of rupees on their personal publicity to avoid public anger, otherwise the PPP would not hesitate to protest against this decision in the assembly and on the streets.

He demanded that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz announce the immediate restoration of thousands of posts abolished by the bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) has also questioned the abolition of low grade posts in the name of austerity drive, and said that big palaces, free luxury cars and jeeps, free petrol and electricity were still being offered to the bureaucrats.

PAT central leaders Rehan Maqbool, Zahid Islam and Mian Kashif regretted that the government was reducing job opportunities for the educated lower middle class, whereas tens of thousands of top bureaucrats would continue to enjoy all perks and privileges at the cost of taxpayers’ money.

They wondered that on one hand the government was claiming to promote education and enroll out-of-school children, and on the other hand, it was depriving the schools of their teachers by abolishing around 30,000 posts.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2026