By Ayesha Saba

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (INP-WealthPK): The global employment market responded favourably to Pakistan's professionals and workers, as the nation's export of labour to other countries experienced exceptional growth, reaching 0.412 million by the end of the first half of 2022. With this huge number of emigrants, Pakistanis form a big diaspora.

According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, more than 11.7 million Pakistanis have proceeded abroad for employment in over 50 countries through official procedures as of December 2021. During 2021, the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment (BE&OE) registered 286,648 workers for overseas employment, showing an increase of 27.6 percent.

An overall increasing trend was observed in terms of emigrants registered in 2021 compared to 2020. Saudi Arabia (54 percent), Oman (13.4 percent) and Qatar (13.2 percent) were the main destinations for unskilled migrant workers from Pakistan in 2021.

The Pakistani workers are mostly concentrated in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (96 percent) with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hosting the majority. They are contributing to the development of the economy of Pakistan by sending remittances, which is the second largest source of foreign exchange after exports.

The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development made a number of measures to increase manpower export and ensure a regular emigration governance process in order to promote safe, orderly and regular emigration. The "National Emigration and Welfare Policy for Overseas Pakistanis" draught has been created and is close to approved.

In today’s globalized economy, Pakistani workers are increasingly looking for job opportunities abroad to find better livelihoods and decent work, while the public and private employment agencies have an important role in matching available jobs in countries of destination with suitably qualified workers.

Skilled manpower is a field in which Pakistan should have developed an edge by now. Our technical institutes and universities turn out skilled persons by thousands annually and these are the workers Pakistan should concentrate on. Fortunately, the academic standard of professional institutes here is fairly high.

The Pakistani diaspora is important for the government because its remittances are one of the largest sources of foreign exchange and an important source of liquidity. The availability of foreign exchange through remittances has not only helped the recipient countries in achieving reasonably high economic growth by reducing the current account deficit, but it has also reduced their external borrowing as well as external debt burden. In recent years, foreign exchange remittances have maintained a steady rising trend.

Pakistan has gained an advantage in the sector of skilled labor force. Every year, thousands of skilled workers are produced by our technical institutions and universities. Pakistan should focus on these workers. The academic standards of the professional institutes here are fortunately quite high.

Apart from that, the government also needs to explore new markets for manpower exports in order to get a sustainable level of remittances. The formulation of appropriate policy is, however, hampered due to incomplete information about the number of workers abroad and total remittances sent home. Policies need to be devised to bring most remittances through formal banking channels.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk