By Irfan Ahmed ISLAMABAD, April 14 (INP-WealthPK): Pakistan's economy added 5.5 million jobs in the last three years from 2018 to 2021, averaging at 1.84 million jobs a year, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2020-21 findings published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, reports WealthPK. The PBS surveyed 6,808 enumeration blocks and 99,904 households, and after a thorough examination, discovered that the overall number of employed people climbed to 67.25 million by June 2021, up from 61.7 million in 2018. However, the official unemployment rate by the end of fiscal year 2018-19 was 5.8%, which rose to 6.3% by the end of fiscal year 2020-21. Sindh had the lowest unemployment rate at 3.9%, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had the highest rate at 8.8%. According to the LFS 2012-13, the unemployment rate in KP was 8.6%. The unemployment rate in Punjab stood at 6.8%, according to the findings of LFS 2020-21 against 7.4% in 2018-19. In the fiscal year 2012-13, the unemployment rate was 6.4% in the province. However, it dropped to 6% in 2017-18. In the three years under review, the unemployment rate in Sindh fell to 3.4%. On the other hand, three years ago, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had an unemployment rate of 7.2%. In Balochistan, the unemployment rate stood at 4.3% in 2020-21 against 4.6% in 2018-19. The unemployment rate in the province stood at 3.9% in 2012-13, which increased to 4.1% in the fiscal year 2017-18. Another finding in the LFS 2020-21 is that the monthly average wage in Balochistan remained higher than the national average at Rs27,659 per month. Punjab's monthly average wage was the lowest at Rs23,367 per month. KP's monthly average wage was Rs24,172 and Sindh's was Rs24,664. The national average monthly wage was Rs24,028. In terms of sectors, the share of agriculture sector in total employment went down from 38.5% three years ago to 37.4% in 2020-21. But the share of industrial sector increased from 23.7% to 25.4%. The services sector’s share in employment also decreased from nearly 38% to 37.2%. The agriculture sector’s percentage of total employment decreased from 38.5% to 37.4% during the last three years (2018-21). However, the industrial sector's proportion in economy climbed from 23.7% to 25.4%. The employment proportion of the services sector fell from over 38% to 37.2%. Over 2.5 million jobs were created in the industrial sector during the last three years, compared to 2.1 million during the 2014-2018. The agriculture sector added 1.4 million jobs, while the services sector added 1.7 million jobs. The increase in unemployment has been observed in both men and women with male unemployment rate standing at 5.5% and female unemployment rate at 8.9%. The overall unemployment rate went down from 6.9% in 2018-19 to 6.3% in the 2020-21. A decrease was observed both in the case of men from 5.9% to 5.5% and women from 10.0% to 8.9%. However, the decline in unemployment rate of women was more pronounced than that of men during the period. Area-wise disaggregated figures indicate that the unemployment rate went down both in urban areas from 7.9% to 7.3% and rural areas from 6.4% to 5.8%. Comparative figures suggest a significant decrease in rural men from 5.5% to 5.1% and women from 8.5% to 7.4%, and in urban men from 6.5% to 6.0% and urban women from 17.1% to 16.4%. [caption id="attachment_66033" align="aligncenter" width="696"] Source: PBS website/WealthPk research[/caption] Employment growth is a challenge for any developing, labour-abundant economy. In the past, the plans were designed to set growth targets but less priority was given to employment generation. However, the creation of 5.5 million jobs suggests that the economy might generate a total of nine million employment opportunities by 2023 at the current rate.