The input from the promoters, however, is not in harmony with official pronouncements that forecast increased export of both skilled and unskilled labour.

Earlier this year, Minister of Labour and Manpower Syed Khurshid Shah told the Senate that as many as 579,350 skilled and unskilled labour were sent abroad during 2007-08. Replying to a question in the upper house, he said 110,938 skilled and 143,699 unskilled persons had gone abroad in 2007, while in 2008 the corresponding figures stood at 149,906 and 174,807, showing an increase of around 27 per cent.

He also talked of aggressive labour marketing through community welfare attaches who have been posted at 21 stations worldwide. The strategy outlined by the minister included identification of potential markets, signing agreements with such countries and executing them on the ground. The target for the current year, he said, was to send 600,000 workers abroad. This incidentally happens to be more than the figures for the two preceding years put together, and as much as 85 per cent higher than the numbers sent overseas in 2008.

Employment promoters in the private sector are skeptical about the official target. Several members of the Pakistan Overseas Employment Promoters Association (POEPA) say they were having a worrying lull in business. Some insist they do not have even a single contract in hand.

Ejaz Ahmad, who heads POEPA's Karachi zone, says Saudi Arabia is “the lone market still active” in seeking Pakistani labour. Decline in the local construction industry for the last about couple of years, he says, has made any overseas job offer attractive for masons and other construction workers. Industrial workers like welders also fall in the same category, he adds. Other markets in the Middle East - UAE, Qatar, Kuwait etc. - and elsewhere - like the United Kingdom, for instance - have simply dried up, he stresses.

Questioned about remarks made by a senior official of the ministry of labour and manpower just days ago that Pakistan exports 0.4 million skilled manpower, including electricians, plumbers, masons, and other related workforce, to the United Kingdom alone every year, he said the prevailing scenario did not support such a claim.

Among other things, the official concerned had talked of the “rising demand of Pakistani doctors in Saudi Arabia”. It has increased manifold, he had said, adding that a delegation of the Saudi ministry of health would come to Pakistan soon in this regard.

“Several countries are demanding Pakistani technical manpower, including electricians, welders, plumbers, shuttering and quality surveyors etc. In the current year, over 3,500 individuals were sent to South Korea,” the official was quoted as saying, adding that the government was committed to alleviating poverty and had planned to provide employment to maximum number of skilled and unskilled youths in South Korea and other countries. The data of manpower export was increasing day by day, he had concluded.

The POEPA official, however, is not convinced. According to him, South Korea was just a purple patch in the business which came to an end quite a while ago. “There has been almost zero activity on that front and there are no indications of a revival at least in the near future,” he said.

As for the UK market, he said, it has always been there but predominantly for the educated professionals. “The language barrier is such that lower grade employees can't get along in such a demanding environment. The only region where language does not come directly in the way is the Gulf and the Middle East, but labour demographics have undergone a transformation there as well,” he said.

There is an almost blanket opinion among the employment promoters that labour force from India and Bangladesh have flourished at the cost of their Pakistani counterparts. Besides, Filipinos have also enlarged their share in the Gulf market, especially when it comes to maid-servants and supermarket staff.

Others point out attempts at localisation of the workforce in most countries of the region. Such notions get confirmation from voices coming out of these states. Earlier this year, for instance, Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, who heads the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies and has been a former ambassador to key destinations like Washington and London before spending more than 25 years as the head of Saudi intelligence service, said in unequivocal terms that the Gulf states, where foreigners make up half the workforce, should give employment preference to their citizens over expatriate labour.

“We should review our economic policies in a serious manner to build national economies that benefit their people and not the millions of foreign workers,” he said in Abu Dhabi during a conference on human resources. “It is not understandable that there be unemployed Gulf nationals in countries that receive millions of foreign workers,” he added.

According to data shared at the conference, foreign workers make up an average of 50 per cent of the workforce in the Gulf region, reaching as high as 92 per cent in the UAE and Qatar and 60 per cent in Saudi Arabia.

The region has suffered from the global economic downturn. Mega real estate projects have been put on hold or cancelled altogether, forcing many expatriate workers to leave the region after losing their jobs.

POEPA members are awaiting an economic revival in overseas markets to be able to have their businesses up and running once again.