Unemployment high in urban areas, KPK, says ILO report

ISLAMABAD: Unemployment rate has been found higher in Pakistan’s urban areas as well as in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) ruled by PTI.
A report released by ILO shows that among unemployed the share of individuals educated up to matriculation and above has increased. It indicates that unemployment among educated youth has been rising in Pakistan.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) report titled “Decent Work Country Profile Pakistan 2014” states that the youth unemployment rate remained the lowest in Sindh and the highest in KPK during the period under review, with youth unemployment decreasing in all four provinces. The most rapid decline in youth unemployment was observed in Balochistan, where it fell from 18.2 per cent in 2001-02 to 3.3 per cent in 2008-09.
The indicator, ‘youth not in education, not in employment or training (NEET)’, gives a measure of the youth who are outside the educational system and not in employment, and thus serves as a broader measure of potential youth labour-market entrants than does youth unemployment. A high NEET rate in comparison to the youth unemployment rate may indicate that a large number of youths are discouraged workers, and/or that they do not have access to education or training.
The proportion of youth who are neither in education nor in employment was quite high during the period under review, although it declined over time, from 40.7 per cent in 2001-02 to 31 per cent in 2012-13. This implies that employment, as well as education opportunities for youth, improved during this period.
However, a large gender gap exists, despite narrowing over time from 61.2 percentage points in 2001-02 to 47.4 percentage points in 2012-13, with the majority of female youth (55.5 per cent) being neither in education nor in employment in 2012-13.
The NEET rate has been higher in the rural sector of the economy, but declined in both the urban and rural areas, with the fall in rural areas being more pronounced, resulting in a narrowing of the urban-rural gap during the period 2001-2013.
In terms of provincial ratio, the NEET rate was the lowest in Punjab (24.4 per cent) and highest in KPK (40 per cent), with the fall in the NEET rate being the highest in Balochistan during the period under review.
In Pakistan the highest share of unemployed in 2012-13 received less than one year of formal education (29.8 per cent), followed by individuals with education up to matriculation but below intermediate level and those with primary but below middle level. Another 12.7 percent of the unemployed in 2012-13 were degree holders.
The analysis by gender reveals that a high share of unemployed women (41.7 per cent) received less than one year of education, while 16 percent were degree holders.
The regional breakdown shows that 37.6 percent of rural unemployed received education of less than one year, followed by individuals with education up to matriculation but below intermediate (16.2 percent).
Youth is an important labour market segment in any country and has an added significance in the case of Pakistan as the country is undergoing a demographic transition, whereby the share of the working-age population who are 15 to 29 years old (especially the youth) is increasing relative to the other age groups.
Generating productive employment for the rising pool of entrants to the youth labour market is therefore imperative if the country is to maximise gains from this transition.The youth unemployment rate in Pakistan fell significantly from a high of 13.4 per cent in 2001-02 to a low at 7.5 per cent in 2006-07, but then started rising again, reaching 10.5 per cent in 2012-13.
The female youth unemployment rate was higher than that of their male counterparts during the period under review, although the gender gap narrowed substantially due to the higher fall in female unemployment.
Youth unemployment has been higher in the urban sector, with the urban-rural unemployment gap doubling over the last decade, from nearly four percentage points in 2001-02 to eight percentage points in 2010-11.