Federal Minister for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Thursday urged to strengthen the vocational training institutes and motivation of people to get technical education to control unemployment problem in the country.
He was addressing the foundation laying ceremony of the Auditorium Building of Pakistan Manpower Institute here.
The minister said management of human and physical resources is becoming more complex than ever before, because of rapidly changing and increasingly complicated work environment due to emerging technologies.
The government is cognisant of the ground realities and believes that unless the problems of unemployment, illiteracy, poverty and low level of human resource development are solved, the dream of a healthy, democratic and progressive society cannot be realised, he said.
Ghulam Sarwar Khan said in the wake of increasing competitiveness and globalisation the demand of unskilled labour is diminishing in national and international markets.
The development of skilled work force, therefore, needs to be made an integral part of the economic development strategy, employment generation and labour migration, he added.
He said that a number of initiatives for skill development in public and private sectors as well as through their joint partnership have been taken by the federal and provincial governments.
The Ministry of Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis is in the process of undertaking integrated and crash vocational training programmes in collaboration with the provincial governments as well as private sector, he said.
Such efforts, he said would increase supply of manpower in critical skills, commensurate with the standards required by the domestic as well as the international labour markets.
The minister for labour said present government believes in practical steps and that is why Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has given targets to all the ministries to improve their performance.
To bring the country out of the present economic situation there is a need of team work and understanding, he said, adding, the era of red tapism has gone and now every body would be answerable for their performance.
Earlier, Director General, Pakistan Manpower Institute (PMI) Athar Mahmood Khan in the welcome address said the institute is in the process of upgrading the existing facilities.
He said, the PMI has arranged 144 training courses and 44 workshops in the field of human resource development. It has provided training to 7000 officers in both public and private sectors in labour management.
Later, the minister laid the foundation stone of the new building of Pakistan Manpower Institute.