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Friday March 29, 2024

Pakistan’s manpower export to ME on decline

By Ansar Abbasi
May 27, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s manpower export to Arab countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has decreased, which hits the country’s remittances as well as the overall human resource export targets of the country.

Manpower export has decreased from 0.94 million in 2015 to 0.84 million in 2016.  Pakistan’s Economic Survey 2016-17 reveals that as against the export of 522,750 workers to Saudi Arabia in 2015, a total of 462,598 workers were offered jobs in SA during the year 2016. Similarly, the number of manpower export to the UAE 326,986 in 2015 but in 2016 these figures decreased to 295,645.

Saudi Arabia and UAE are the two countries, which host the maximum number of Pakistani workers. For the same reason the major portion of remittances that Pakistan receives, come from Saudi Arabia and UAE.

According to the statistic of Bureaus of Emigration and Overseas, Saudi Arabia is the largest country to host Pakistani workers and 1.6 million workers proceeded for job from 2013 to 2016 followed by UAE 1.2 million.

Like SA and UAE, the human resource exports from Pakistan to Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and even Malaysia saw a decline in 2016. The details show that the manpower export decreased from 9,029 in 2015 to 8,226 in 2016 in the case Bahrain; from 47,788 in 2015 to 45,085 in 2015 in the case of Oman; from 12,741 in 2015 to 9,706 in 2016 in the case of Qatar. 

In the case of Malaysia, the manpower export decreased from 20,216 in 2015 to 10,625 in 2016. The manpower export, however, saw improvement in the case of UK. Official data shows that Pakistan exported 260 workers to UK in 2015 while this figure increased to 346 in 2016.

Regarding the overall decline in the human resource export, the Economic Survey report says, “The major reason of declining the number of Pakistani workers proceeded abroad during 2016 was slowdown in construction-related activities in Saudi Arabia and GCC countries, decrease in oil prices and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia slashed its transport and infrastructure budget in 2016 by 63 percent as compared to 2015.”

According to details, there are about 9 million overseas Pakistanis working around the globe. The main concentration of overseas Pakistanis is in Middle East with 54.8 percent, Europe 26.8 percent and America 11.9 percent. During 2016, around 0.84 million labour force proceeded to different countries especially Saudi Arabia and Middle East which not only contributed to the economies of the host countries through their services but also earned remittances for the country.

Although the year 2016 shows a decline in manpower’s export, the Survey report claims that the government has taken various measures to increase the export of Pakistani manpower to other countries.

The report maintains that Emir of Qatar has announced 100,000 jobs for Pakistan for its FIFA World Cup 2022. It adds that during the recent visit of the prime minister to Kuwait, the restriction on issuing of visas to Pakistani nationals has been lifted by the Kuwaiti government.

The Economic Survey says that various steps are under consideration to capture the manpower market of UAE with special reference to Dubai Expo, 2020. It adds that the government is working with the UAE for up skilling and certified manpower. In this regard, according to the report, four institutes have been accredited by the UAE government under the Pilot Project on Skills Upgradation Accreditation of Vocational Training Centre in Pakistan.