PUBLISHED
November 30, 2025
ISLAMABAD:
Three isolated but deeply connected events this week have cleared the smog on the national economic front that the country was on the path of sustainable development when top policymakers admitted that the growth plan was either missing or not enough to sustain the burden with unemployment peaking to two decades’ highest level.
The sad outcome of these three events, which happened within the radius of the red zone, was already known to many. In the middle of these events, an article beautifully described the fact that more than 615,000 Pakistanis flew abroad in just 10 months in search of the jobs while hundreds others were offloaded from the planes.
This year’s Pakistan Business Council’s annual dialogue on economy served as a grandeur platform to know what the policymakers in the civil and the military establishments were thinking. Two equally candid and straightforward speeches within the gap of 24 hours from the same platform broke the castle built on the flimsy mantra that Pakistan was on the path of irreversible economic development and the 25th bailout programme by the International Monetary Fund would be the last one.
The central bank governor, Jameel Ahmad, in his usual calm style, delivered the message that Pakistan’s current growth model simply cannot sustain a country of over 250 million people.
The analysts had long been saying that the current economic approach was built on rosy numbers by ignoring much-needed deep-rooted structural reforms and at the expense of souls. The number-based approach was aimed at showing improvement in fiscal position by overburdening existing taxpayers and building foreign exchange reserves through market purchases instead by enhancing exports. This consolidation took a heavy toll on people and businesses.
But the governor was candid enough to say that this “continuing with stabilisation policies indefinitely is neither desirable nor sustainable”.
Pakistan’s economic growth has been on a steadily declining trend, which has slipped from an average of 3.9% over the last 30 years to 3.5% over the last 20 years and further to 3.4% over the last five years. Mind it, the nation needs over 6% economic growth rate just to keep the pace of accommodating new entrants in the job market.
The final punch came from the general. In his address to Pakistan’s leading businesspersons, the Special Investment Facilitation Council’s National Coordinator said that the country’s “growth plan was missing”. He urged all the stakeholders to agree on an export-led economic growth model that can end reliance on protection and subsidies.
Gen Sarfraz’s statement about the lack of any growth plan also raises many questions on the efficacy of multiple economic plans that the government was following. These include three-year Extended Fund Facility by the IMF, Stefen Dercons economic plan, Ahsan Iqbal’s Uraan Pakistan, the World Bank’s 10-year plan in addition to the interventions by Mackenzie.
General Sarfraz’s view that consumption-led and debt-prone growth model was a faulty approach holds grounds, as this has kept the economy uncompetitive and conventional too.
Outcome of stabilisation policies
Pakistanis have been suffering and suffering badly is now officially endorsed. This week’s Labour Force Survey, which was released after a gap of four years and that too under pressure from the IMF, tells the hard story of common Pakistan.
The survey says that the unemployment rate in Pakistan rose to 21 years’ highest level of 7.1% in the last fiscal year. The findings showed that the unemployment rate that was 6.3% in the year 2021 went up to 7.1% during the fiscal year 2024-25.
The official record showed that the 7.1% was the highest unemployment rate since 2003-04 when the ratio had been recorded at 7.7%. Since then the unemployment rate remained in the range of 5.3% to 6.9%. In the fiscal year 2018-19 the unemployment rate was 6.9%.
Interestingly though, out of the total nearly 180 million working age population, close to 118 million or two out of every three persons were unpaid employees doing services at homes like cleaning, fetching water, taking care of children and raising chickens.
Nearly one-fourth unpaid workers were engaged in household jobs, 18.7% in livestock, 23% taking care of children, 7% were fetching water for home and another 7.1% were engaged in raising chickens at homes.
Even if these are also included in the category of unemployed persons then the results are horrific.
Out of the total 5.9 million unemployed people, 4.6 million or 77.5% were literate ones, which should be another grave concern for the policymakers. The literate people are leaving the country in search of jobs, and blacksmiths cannot build a nation of 250 million people.
The survey states that nearly one million people having education degrees were unemployed. According to the details, the highest number of unemployed people was in the age group of 15 to 29 years, followed by 15 to 24 years of age group.
The provincial break up of unemployment also tells another interesting story. The highest unemployment rate of 9.6% was in KP, followed by 7.3% in Punjab, 5.5% in Balochistan and 5.3% in Sindh, the lowest among all the federating units.
Pakistan’s average economic growth rate remained less than 3% over a longer period of time and the economy was not creating enough jobs to absorb the new entrants in the market. The survey showed that every year 3.5 million people were entering the job market.
The civilians do not admit their faults and yet again have thrown the blame on the IMF.
According to the Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, the IMF’s stagnation programme has brought misery in addition to the impact of climate change. However, it is his party’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif who had signed off the deal with the IMF.
The Labour Force Participation rate, which is expressed labour force, employed plus unemployed as a percentage of the 10-plus population, increased from 44.9% to 46.3%. The survey results indicated that the labour force increased from 71.8 million in 2020-21 to 83.1 million in 2024-25.
Employees constitute the largest group of 43.5% followed by own account workers, 36.1%, contributing family workers 19.1% and employers 1.3%. If the contributing workers are also excluded from the list of employed, the results are more concerning.
Almost one-half of female worker’s toil as contributing family workers and almost one-half of male are working as employees.
Unpaid domestic & care work
The report disclosed that a significant proportion of respondents engage in domestic and care work, with 45.4 million women involved in household chores, 32.1 million in livestock operations and 20 million in caregiving responsibilities, highlighting their vital roles in these areas.
In the absence of a growth framework and a growth rate that can create jobs for everyone, Pakistanis are living in the country.
Pakistan’s export of manpower to international markets reached 615,055 by the end of October 2025, reflecting an average of 61,505 workers leaving the country each month, according to the official data released by the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BEOE). In comparison, 727,381 Pakistani workers moved overseas in 2024, marking an average monthly outflow of 60,615.
An Express Tribune report says that the record outflow masks deepening challenges faced by workers seeking opportunities abroad. Despite rising demand in Gulf markets, thousands of Pakistanis continue to battle complex visa requirements, tighter documentation rules, frequent rejections, and heightened airport offloading, obstacles that often turn already desperate economic migration into a punishing ordeal.
It further states that Pakistan’s worsening economic conditions are driving record numbers of people abroad, yet those seeking livelihoods face mounting obstacles at every step of the migration journey. Visa and documentation processes remain daunting, with applicants struggling through confusing requirements, inconsistent scrutiny, and frequent rejections.
Airport offloading has also intensified, disproportionately targeting individuals under 30 and leading to devastating financial losses as borrowed money for tickets, visas, and agent fees, often running into hundreds of thousands of rupees, cannot be recovered. Skill mismatches worsen the challenge, as weak CVs, generic applications, lack of certifications, poor English proficiency, and limited technical training hinder competitiveness in Gulf and European markets.
Divided economic house
At a time when the government needs to respond to the economic and human crisis, its house is divided. The inside reports suggest that there is a strong element of dissatisfaction on the performance of the economic team. The blame game has begun; the scapegoat is being searched for a sacrifice.
Due to a divided house, the government has not been able to effectively put a defensive wall against the growing criticism on the outcomes of the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment report. So far, the Ministry of Finance is quiet and the Prime Minister’s Office would now probably ask the junior finance minister, Bilal Azhar Kayani to put a defense in the Parliament.
