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Labour Market Issues in Pakistan: Unemployment, Working Conditions, and Child Labour

Author

Listed:
  • Sabur Ghayur

    (Pakistan office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Islamabad.)

Abstract

Pakistan’s labour market is showing its inability to continue the past trend of labour absorption. Generation of additional work opportunities commensurate with labour supplies, increasing by over 3 percent annually, has emerged as the most formidable challenge of the nineties. The labour market is presently confronted with the twin menace of unemployment and underemployment. Although, the rate of unemployment has not as yet assumed serious proportions, the worrying aspect of this 5 percent unemployment is its concentration amongst the youth, and educated and trained. The under-utilisation of manpower, however, is manifested in the form of under-employment. There are more than a-tenth of the employed who find their work unable to keep them busy for 35 hours a week [FBS (1994)]. Further, those employed a-quarter of them find their employment income only meeting half of the subsistence requirements, while a similar proportion find their employment income barely managing to meet the subsistence requirements [NMC (1989)]. Lesser productive and low remunerative work opportunities is thus emerging as the major characteristic of the labour market in Pakistan. The situation in the labour market is serious on yet another account. The working conditions of those lucky found employed, by and large, are not satisfactory, rather they are deplorable. Long working hours and poor working conditions are the normal features of a significant number of work places. A number of them also carry occupational safety and health hazards.

Suggested Citation

  • Sabur Ghayur, 1996. "Labour Market Issues in Pakistan: Unemployment, Working Conditions, and Child Labour," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 789-803.
  • Handle: RePEc:pid:journl:v:35:y:1996:i:4:p:789-803
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    File URL: http://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/PDR/1996/Volume4/789-803.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Irfan, 2010. "A Review of the Labour Market Research at PIDE 1957-2009," PIDE Books, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, number 2010:1 edited by Rashid Amjad & Aurangzeb A. Hashmi.
    2. Minhaj Ul Haque & Munawar Sultana, 2003. "Coming of Age in Contemporary Pakistan: Influences of Gender and Poverty," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 643-668.
    3. Ambreen Fatima, 2017. "Child labour in Pakistan: Addressing supply and demand side labour market dynamics," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 28(2), pages 294-311, June.
    4. Naushin Mahmood, 2009. "Population and Development Demographic Research at PIDE," PIDE Books, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, number 2009:1 edited by Rashid Amjad & Aurangzeb A. Hashmi.

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