Survey doesn’t give latest data of poverty, unemployment

ISLAMABAD: Amid rising estimates of poverty level of up to 44.7 per cent population living below the poverty line in Pakistan as revealed by the World Bank, the Economic Survey for 2024-25 did not have the latest estimates on official poverty figure and unemployment rate in the country.

At a time when the World Bank jacked up its threshold for lower middle income countries, including Pakistan, from $3.65 to $4.20 per day per person, the poverty level in Pakistan has surged making 44.7 per cent population to live into cruel clutches of poverty.

However, the Economic Survey for 2024-25 did not incorporate any latest figures on poverty and unemployment rate. When Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb’s attention was drawn towards this issue at Monday’s news conference, he said the finance ministry of Finance realises the issue, but it is due to the threshold going up resulting into increased poverty level.

On the unemployment side, he said it was not the government’s job to create 10 million jobs, rather it was trying its best to provide an echo-system for private sector to grow and create job opportunities.

Sources said the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics remained burdened with accomplishing the population census and other assignments in the last two years, so the Labour Force Survey and Household Income Expenditure Survey will be completed in the next fiscal year 2025-26. The latest official figures on unemployment and poverty level might be made available in the next financial year.