Rising incidence of unemployment: Govt considering setting up 'job banks': minister

ASMA RAZAQ

ISLAMABAD: The government, in its fifth and last budget, was likely to announce special a policy for the country's youth, converting them into assets from liabilities, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan said on Wednesday.

Addressing a workshop jointly organised by ILO, UNDP and UNFPA titled 'Contemporary Issues of Youth Employment in Pakistan', she said that a recent cabinet meeting had directed all ministries to create job banks for the youth for creating opportunities for millions of unemployed youngsters.

She said that the youth needed to be properly educated, kept healthy and trained. They should, she said, also be provided with opportunities for personal development and their energies needed to be channelised in a positive manner to achieve the overall development objectives.

The workshop was also attended by Secretary of the federal Ministry of Professional and Technical Training Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, ILO's Country Director Francesco d'Ovidio, UNDP Country Director Toshihiro Tanaka, UNEFP Country Representative Rabbi Royan, Country Representative UNFPA and Dean and Principal of NUST Business School Prof Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan.

The minister said that the proposed 'job banks' would provide jobs to all fresh graduates and master degree holders, leading to a reduction in unemployment.

She said that youth were the biggest national asset, while their unemployment was one of the main issues confronting Pakistan.

According to a survey of UNFPA, there are 47.4 million young people in Pakistan who are under the age of 25.

Highlighting various programmes initiated by the government, the minister said that it had started Waseel-e-Haq and Waseela-e-Rozgar programmes to eliminate unemployment.

Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that Pakistan is experiencing a demographic bulge. The government, he said, had introduced various programmes for youth training and skill development like the National Internship Programme.

Provincial governments, he said, had also initiated youth employment opportunities under different programmes, such Sindh's Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme. In Balochistan a special programme for youth training and employment was being designed, he said, adding it would be announced in the upcoming budget.

Key recommendations of the workshop included; give voice, visibility and a sense of involvement to young women and men in the national, provincial and local development planning. It also called for promoting job-rich investment programmes, creating more and better jobs through an inclusive economic growth model. The participants also called for using youth employment as a leverage to prevent social disintegration and converting threats into opportunities, besides ensuring timely collection and availability of comprehensive national data. They also called for improving education attainment, a smooth school-to-work transition, better career counseling and vocational guidance and respect for employment contracts.

The workshop also emphasized to cease the opportunity of having a democratic government, recent devolution of powers, emerging rule of law and economic transition and use it for creating more and better jobs for young women and men. The workshop also emphasised on adopting an inclusive model where divides on basis of sex, ethnicity, language, or any other bases should be removed and institutions should reach out to the most excluded and vulnerable groups on priority basis.

The participants at a workshop urged the federal and provincial governments to form youth policy that is yet to be developed by them except Punjab and they need to be involved at the core of policy formulation to opportunities.

UN's Resident Coordinator Pakistan Timo Pakala of the 47.7 million young people in Pakistan between the ages of 15-29 years, more than 38 percent of the young women and men live in urban areas while 62 percent live in rural areas. He said that over 30 percent youth in Pakistan were illiterate. 

Participating students from various universities and technical and vocational training institutes highlighted mismatch of education, skills development and job market. They called for standardising the curriculum of universities and vocational institutes and stressed the need for forming a body to regulate such institutes. The speakers called for holding a separate discussion on Balochistan.