A joint report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) in its report titled "monitoring progress report of the global partnership on effective development cooperation" recommended to the government to create jobs for the fast growing young workforce with the objective of broadening its industrial base and ensuring future sustainable development. In this context, it is relevant to note that the recently concluded twelfth and final review of the 6.64 billion dollar Extended Fund Facility under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) uploaded on their website in October 2016 states that among other indicators that remain below comfortable levels "unemployment remains relatively high at 6 percent (10.5 percent among the youth and 9.5 percent among women)," which require "reinforcing macroeconomic resilience and a strong structural reform drive...to make further inroads in addressing these challenges."
Three elements need to be highlighted in this context. First and foremost, the inability of successive governments to carry out a census - be it for political or security reasons - implies almost exclusive reliance on projections which may no longer be relevant. Secondly, the rate of unemployment has obvious political ramifications and the Sharif administration, like its predecessors, has shown a penchant for data manipulation of all economic indicators but especially those with a political fallout. And finally, Pakistan does not have an organised labour exchange in any major city while other labour - women as well as haris in the farm sector or those working in brick kilns - remain undocumented.
Be that as it may, there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that Imran Khan, chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been attracting the youth and the reason may partly be the disillusionment with the status quo parties whose leadership is periodically subjected to claims of massive corruption; but is also, without doubt, due to the failure of the PML-N to reduce the youth unemployment rate. This is not to state that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ignored the youth in the four budgets announced during his tenure; however, clearly the amount has not been sufficient to make his party more attractive to the youth. The Sharif administration budgeted 21 billion rupees in 2014-15 for Prime Minister's schemes which included Prime Minister's Youth Training Programme, Prime Minister's fee reimbursement scheme for less developed areas, Youth Skill Development Programme, and provision of laptops; by the end of the year the government claimed to have released 7 billion rupees for youth programmes. In 2015-16 budget, 20 billion rupees was earmarked for youth development and the budget claimed to have disbursed 21.06 billion rupees; however, there has been no evaluation of the success or otherwise of these disbursements compelling one to reserve judgement till an assessment is carried out. In the current year, 20 billion rupees has again been allocated.
But a section of the population-specific allocations is unlikely to make a major difference and in this context the UNDP and the OECD, like other multilaterals including the IMF, have urged the government to undertake governance reforms to ensure that the public sector entities are performing at capacity, which would fuel employment/output as well as give job security to the labour force, while at the same time ensure a business climate that would attract investment, local as well as foreign, and fuel domestic productivity. Unfortunately, as data suggests, our exports are down due to the government's intervention in keeping the rupee overvalued, failure to provide utilities at rates that are comparable with those of our competitors abroad and last but not least, engaging in infrastructure projects under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor that are reportedly using Chinese as opposed to domestic labour. That needs to change without any further loss of time.