Situationer: Looking for work that isn’t there

A SEVEN per cent drop in textile exports during the current fiscal year has brought about thousands of layoffs in the industry, putting daily wagers and contractual workers at risk of starvation. And this is “just the beginning”. The situation in the auto sector is equally grave, as more than “250,000 people have lost their jobs” due to a dip in the sale of automobiles. Mazhar Iqbal (not his real name), 32, has been jobless for a month. “I worked as a contractual employee in the quality inspection department of a textile unit in FB Area for six years. But after I proceeded on sick leave, my employer asked me not to come back to work because my ‘job does not exist anymore’,” he told Dawn. Mr Iqbal and his family depend on his sister, who works as a doctor in the UK, for sustenance. He said that after spending more than six years in the industry, it has become difficult for him to switch professions. But his dilemma is that other mills are not hiring. Over 400,000 informal workers from textile, auto sectors lost their jobs in first half of FY23; stakeholders urge govt to develop strategy to avert further retrenchments “I have been trying hard to get the same type of job but officials in other textile mills say that they cannot hire due to lack of work owing to a dip in export orders.”