Special Assistant to the PM for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfikar Bukhari went to Twitter to talk about Pakistan’s labor export.
He said, “For a country, direly in need of foreign remittances we created 1.2 million new jobs across the world since coming into government.”
He added, “Even with global slowdown during Covid-19 we kept Pakistan in leading spot. This alone accounts for 12% of PM’s promised jobs.”
For a country direly in need of foreign remittances we created 1.2 million new jobs across the world since coming into government.
Even with global slowdown during #Covid we kept Pakistan in leading spot.
This alone accounts for 12% of PM’s promised jobs. pic.twitter.com/G1NrFmRfEG— Sayed Z Bukhari (@sayedzbukhari) June 14, 2021
The recent Economic Survey launched on 10th June 2021 for the outgoing Fiscal Year 2020-21 mentioned that Pakistan is one of the largest labor exporting countries in the region.
The document read that overseas migrant workers are the most valuable asset of Pakistan and they are playing a key role in the socio-economic development of the country through their remittances.
It is true, as the current GDP surge to a surprising 3.94 percent is largely on the back of remittances, as claimed by Pakistan’s Finance Minister himself, who said on 10th June that he hopes that the remittances continue, as they helped stabilize the country during the pandemic.
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It must be mentioned that according to the SBP data, 10MFY21 remittances from July 2020-April 2021 had reached $24.2 billion, which is an all-time record for the country.
According to the Economic Survey, more than 11.43 million Pakistanis are working abroad in more than 50 countries around the world. However, the emigration to the Gulf countries such as Suadi Arabia and UAE remained the major contributors as host countries for the non-resident Pakistanis, hosting 96 percent of the population.
According to the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment, in 2020, 224,705 Pakistanis have gone abroad for employment purposes compared to 625,203 in 2019, showing a decrease of 64 percent year-on-year, equivalent to 0.4 million fewer people.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, overall a declining trend was observed in terms of emigrants registered in 2020 including GCC countries.
Regional Comparison
The COVID-19 pandemic hampered the manpower export not only from Pakistan but also from other regional countries. The data by the Economic survey shows that a total of 224,705 emigrants were registered for overseas employment from Pakistan in the year 2020 as compared to 625,203 registered in 2019 which shows a decrease of 400,498 emigrants.
Similarly, India and Bangladesh faced a decline of 273,093 and 482,490 respectively in terms of emigrants registered during 2020 as compared to 2019.
This may be because the long-lasting impacts of the COVID-19 + on the countries in East Asia were usually worse than Pakistan, which due to its ‘prudent policies’ as IGOs term it, has surfed through rather safely.
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The economic survey also lists down the numerous programs taken up by the Ministry of Overseas Pakistani & Human Resource Development to cater to Pakistani workers more desirable to the demands of the foreign nations.