ISLAMABAD: Rising unemployment coupled with ever increasing growth in population threatens the country’s economic outlook generating food insecurity, environment and urban congestion, fears the Economy Survey 2013-14 launched by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday.

The survey suggests that the unemployment rate is increasing in both rural and urban areas. Rising population is putting more pressure on scarce resources.

When the reason of rising unemployment in rural areas is mainly due to limited absorption capacity in agriculture sector, the ever increasing joblessness in urban areas is the result of rural-urban migration, contributing to the upsurge of urban population where job opportunities are already not increasing accordingly.

On the other hand the industrial development has not yet reached up to the position to address the issues of unemployment on account of dismal performance in the past, the survey lamented. The overall unemployment rate increased to 6.2 per cent in 2012-13 from 5.6pc in 2009-10.

Province wise comparison of unemployment shows that the number of unemployed people increased in Punjab compared to other provinces from 2.10 million in 2010-11 to 2.28 million in 2012-13.

The apparent reason of high unemployment in Punjab is the highest population from other provinces, which was 0.1 million in 2012-13 in Balochistan. The main reason of this unemployment increase is the bad infrastructure, law and order situation and lack of business and industrial activities.

Surprisingly the unemployment rate in Sindh decreased to 5 per cent in 2012-13 which was at 5.2pc per cent in the corresponding year 2011-12. In Khyber Pakthunkhwa the rate increased to 4pc.

Gender wise female unemployment rate has increased to 9pc in 2012-13 compared to 8.9pc in 2010.

The overall reasons of unemployment are the rising population, law and order situation lack of technical education and shortage of skill training institutes. Youth is also facing challenges but some of these are common in the overall labour market.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world with projected population of 188 million. With 1.95pc population growth rate, which is higher than the average growth rate of South Asian countries, the World Population Data Sheet 2013 projects Pakistan’s population in 2050 to be at 363 million.

The average life expectancy has improved from 64.6 years in 2013 to 64.9 years in 2014 for males and for females it has improved from 66.5 years in 2013 to 66.9 years in 2014. Currently, the global life expectancy for both male and female is 70 years.

According to Pakistan Labour Force survey 2012-13, 94 per cent of the population of the age bracket 35-39 is married. The most phenomenal increase in married population may be seen in the age bracket 20-29 where percentage of married population has increased 73 per cent.

This is the most fertile age of population growth thus having a direct impact on fertility and population growth rate.

Remittances: Remittances from overseas Pakistanis stood at $13,922 million during July-April 2013-14 it reached to $ 12,895 million in the comparable period of 2012-13.

Since 1971 up to March 2014 around 7.4 million overseas Pakistanis working/living around the globe. The main concentration of overseas Pakistanis is in Middle East 49.2pc, Europe 28.3pc and America 16.2pc.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2014