Pakistan’s skilled worker shortages

LAHORE: Pakistan has a serious problem to deal with: its highly skilled professionals are either leaving or want to leave the country for better opportunities abroad.This results in skill shortages throughout the country. But with low salaries or no jobs, most people are justified in moving out.

Pakistan’s labour market is awash with unskilled labour force. It is better for their families, and even Pakistan, if these unskilled workers find work abroad. But the global market for unskilled or semi-skilled jobs is fully saturated, and these jobs are rare to find anywhere in the world.

Most low-skilled Pakistani workers are working in the Gulf. But these economies are now recruiting qualified doctors, engineers, accountants and nurses. Our pool of unemployed, low-skilled or unskilled workforce is increasing.

Pakistan does need doctors, engineers, nurses and accountants in large numbers. They are needed in rural areas where most of them do not want to move. The problem is compounded by the lack of attractive salaries and opportunities in rural areas. This, coupled with limited social amenities, discourages them from working there.

Highly skilled professionals leave the country with their immediate family and seldom send money back home except in cases where they have their parents back home. After a few years in the Middle East, they usually migrate to Western countries and settle there permanently. The attraction of home remittances from highly skilled workers is not so high.

It is the low-skilled labourers who send most of their meagre earnings to their families for their monthly expenses. This source of income may slowly dry as their demand wanes.

Official data shows a sharp rise in immigration. In 2021, about 225,000 Pakistanis left the country; approximately 765,000 Pakistanis went abroad for employment in 2022, according to the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment.

Official records indicate that among those who travelled overseas in 2022, over 92,000 were highly educated professionals such as doctors, engineers, IT experts and accountants.Brain drain has led to a shortage of highly qualified medical professionals, and poor returns on investment by the government. Currently, Pakistan seems to have nothing but problems. The endemic poverty of the British Raj pales compared with the current poverty rate in Pakistan.

The highly skilled workforce badly needed in Pakistan is going abroad in search of jobs. The educated see their future in any country but their own. In recent years, Pakistan has descended into economic and political chaos. Experts say that every doctor who leaves a poor nation leaves a hole that cannot be filled.