Economics of exhaustion

An industrialised economy requires a special type of labour. Already divided along class lines, Pakistan’s workforce is further split up owing to income inequality. A construction worker who puts in his blood, sweat and tears to develop the cityscape can now no longer rely on his manual dexterity to earn a decent wage. In such an extremely competitive economy, the price of manual labour has become rather cheap and meaningless. This has forced construction workers into a bottomless pit of poverty and destitution.

The economy of this city has now become highly mechanised and technological adeptness, a skill that requires a different kind of investment, rules the roost.

Syed Abdul Aziz

Karachi