Skilled workforce needed to move ahead

LAHORE: Pakistan can no longer pull through with a large unskilled workforce, and the government cannot afford to provide social benefits to the unemployed workforce.

Lack of skills should be a major worry for the planners, who need to always remain on their toes since skills become obsolete quickly with the introduction new technologies. This also brings in to question the purpose of staying in college up to the age of 25 years without any practical experience in work. We are producing thousands of unemployable graduates and masters every year that wasted over two decades of their life in studies that cannot guarantee them gainful employment.

We have been following the British or American systems to create an enlightened and educated workforce, whereas for us, following the German system of apprenticeship could have worked better. Germans through their educational system have ensured that skill formation and development become a life-long process. It starts with formal schooling and continues through on-the-job training with intervals of full-time education at different points in life.

Pakistan is a country where an overwhelming majority of the population is young. These young citizens need lifelong education in skills. The mechanisms for delivering continuous retooling should be arranged through closer public-private partnership with a focus on quality and equity in opportunity.

The planners should realise that multiple problems affect employment. It could be political unrest in the country or weak demand of Pakistani goods overseas. Declining exports from most emerging economies reveal that the weak demand is due to recession in Europe, slow down in China and sloppy recovery in the United States. In addition, longer-term structural issues are also weighing down labour markets locally and globally.

The planners should also realise that globalisation in the 21st century has become highly disruptive. There is a continuous shift of comparative advantage. This disruption needs radical adjustment as employment created in new activities does not necessarily compensate for the loss of jobs in old ones. The reality is that most new jobs require different skills. This implies that workers losing their jobs in dying industries cannot be adjusted in the jobs created in the new high-tech industries.

Another thing to be taken into account is that technological progress is becoming ever more labour-saving. The computers and robots are replacing human workers rapidly. With each upgrade in technology, the need for human workforce is reducing. This calls for incentives to accelerate industrialisation in the country.

Token changes in the existing arrangements will not work. A comprehensive reform is needed through reassessment of work, skill formation, retirement, and leisure.

The quality of human resource is linked to education in skill and health. Companies want highly productive workforce, capable of working at least 40 hours per week. They expect them to be available for more hours when additional production is required. They don't want senile, weak, workforce that works for 30 hours per week.  At the global front, the opportunities for our workers are not bright.