Survey silent on job losses

Amid contraction in big industry production, a large number of direct and indirect workers lost jobs mainly in the textile and auto sectors, but Economic Survey FY23 did not reveal anything about a bleak employment scenario during the outgoing fiscal year. The data, however, presented a rosy picture of the rising employed labour force to 67.25 million in FY21 from 64m in FY19, while data for FY22 and FY23 was also missing. While giving a satisfying outlook of overseas employment, the survey claims that more than 12.4 million Pakistanis have proceeded abroad for employment in over 50 countries through official procedures as of December 2022. More than 96pc of Pakistani registered workers for overseas employment are in Gulf Cooperation Council countries especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.