ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s industrial sector would require over 2 million skilled work force by 2022 as there will be higher growth in employment in 2017-22 has been forecast due to swift changes in consumer preferences and penetration of organized furnishing services.
The acute shortage of skilled workforce badly hampering the local export, particularly the furniture and furnishings products, said , said Pakistan Furniture Council (PFC) Chief Executive Mian Kashif Ashfaq.
In a statement here on Saturday, he said there was a dire need to provide training to non-skilled and semi-skilled workers of this industry who are scattered in furniture hubs like Gujrat, Gojra, Peshawar and Chiniot to boost furniture exports to $5 billion in five years.
He said that statistics show that out of 59 million potential workforce, 56.5 million is employed while 3.5 million (6 per cent) are unemployed.
Over 90 per cent of the unemployed labor consists of unskilled people and most of the rest whereas remaining 10 per cent are those who are educated but without having any skill, he remarked.
He said the market is moving rapidly towards organized segment and the share of organised employment will increase from 5% in 2017 to 13% by 2022 in Pakistan.
PFC CEO said due to swift change in technology and innovation techniques, the furniture industry in Pakistan is in dire need of the skilled workers and professional designers, adding that furniture and space design must amalgamate aesthetics, culture, history, procedures, manifestation, material, purpose and visualization.
He said the workers and designers must learn to work with many applications; they need to develop a clear professional, theoretic and creative foundation with complete knowledge of the procedures, techniques and expressions associated with the design of space and furniture.”Good furniture designers must develop methods that enable them to work in an experimental, independent and artistic manner,” he added.
He called upon the educational and economic planners to look carefully on the needs of the industry and come up with courses that ensure that they develop a curriculum that addresses their skill force needs.
He said If PFC achieves target of $5-billion exports then it will become the second largest industry after textiles whose exports are $14 billion.
PFC urged the government for announcing schemes like training workers, export refinance and soft loans for exporters declare the furniture industry a part of the cottage industry and give it all the benefits and facilities that were given to the industry of sports goods and surgical instruments besides establishment of properly organized exclusive export centre for furniture one each at Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
