ISLAMABAD: More than 1.2 million Pakistanis went abroad for employment in last two years: 2013 and 2014. More than half of the total people heading abroad hailed from Punjab.
A well-placed source at the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) told this scribe here the other that MoC had been thriving for sending more and more skilled labour abroad to earn foreign remittances.
“Pakistani emigrants went abroad through licensed issued by overseas employment promoters, direct employment visa on the demand and criteria fixed by the foreign employer,” the source added , saying that the selection of workers for employment abroad was carried out by the foreign employers themselves or through their representatives in the country.
The source while sharing province wise break up the Pakistanis went abroad said that 663,305 people hailed from Punjab province while 292,168 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 129,235 from Sindh and 15,503 people from Balochistan. “Similarly, 84,132 people went abroad to seek bright future from Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK), 67,752 from Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) and 2,961 people from Northern Areas/ Gligit-Baltistan (NA & GB),” the source added.
The source said that workers heading to other countries were categorized as professionals, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. “A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with Bahrain in March this year for further promotion of Pakistani labourers in Bahrain.
The source said that overseas employment was playing a vital role in reducing the pressure of un-employment at home, besides being a major means of earning foreign exchange in the shape of overseas workers’ remittances and it was serving as the mainstay for very feeble national economy, by providing much needed financial outlay for debt servicing, imports bill, alleviation of poverty, development projects and economic activities.
The source said that the MoC had been pressing on both the federal and provincial governments to enhance number of vocational training institutions to equip unskilled labor with required professional skills and techniques so that Pakistanis heading abroad would be able to get good wages. Currently, the source said that Pakistani labor being unskilled did not get good wages and most of Pakistanis were either engaged as drivers, masons or laborers and were destined to get minimum possible wages, whereas, skilled labour from other countries was handsomely paid.
