Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Friday said that substantial decline has occurred in unemployment rate in the country over the past few years and efforts are going on to further reduce it.
Speaking in a PTV programme he said the unemployment rate during year 2000 was 8.7 percent, which now has dropped to around 6 percent. He said that all the sectors in the country are on gradual pace of growth, which is promising aspect to bring down the rate of unemployment.
The minister said that during past few years, 4.9 million employment opportunities were created in various sectors with agriculture sector on top of the list. He said during year 1999-2000 the entire bulk of development budget was Rs 88 billion, which now has raised to Rs 435 billion.
There are trends of rapid flow of foreign investment in the country and the economic activities are at boost, he said. The fact is that country is facing the shortage of skilled manpower almost in all the fields he said and added that is why, the President, the Prime Minister and the Labour Ministry are keen to promote the culture of job-oriented education.
A number of measures are being taken to draw earlier results in manpower training in various field to feed the domestic as well as overseas demands, he said. He said that there is growing demand of skilled manpower from Pakistan in a number of countries but the Ministry is facing trouble in fulfilling it.
To a question he said that Pakistan's Statistic Bureau remains intact with International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other international bodies and facts and figures issues by this body bear international recognition and certification.
So there is no room for anyone to doubt these figure, he maintained. He said the figures are regularly updated on quarterly basis and all the survey reports are certified by ILO.
He further said the introduction of local governments' system was a revolutionary step on part of present government, which has shifted the focus of development activities to grassroots level. Unprecedented development activity is taking place in rural areas in all the sectors, he said.
To another question he said the manpower export to other country has increased during the past few years adding during year 1999-2000 only 78,000 Pakistani workers went abroad while the target for current fiscal year is 200,000.
He said an understanding has been made with Qatar for the export of Pakistan's manpower to that country and a formal decision to this effect would be taken during the forthcoming visit of Amir-e-Qatar to Pakistan.
While refuting the press reports regarding some restrictions by Saudi Arabia on the import of Pakistani manpower he said, such reports are misleading. The fact is that Saudi government has introduced some scrutiny measure at its airports to have a check on the movement of undesired people vis-a-vis growing terrorism tendencies world across he said and added they are not Pakistan specific. There is no visa restriction or other hurdle whatsoever for Pakistani manpower in Saudi Arabia, he informed.
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