IT is not pleasant to start one’s morning with gruesome stories of young, aspiring, illegal immigrants drowning or being battered by boat operators. One can understand their rash intent in taking such a perilous journey to the West, when they see an older cousin or uncle build a huge mansion next to their shack in the village. These gentlemen had made their money abroad where they had gone illegally through agents. But it does not have to be this way.

Germany will lose 49 billion euros this year due to unfilled positions. There is a projected worker shortage of 85 million globally by 2030. While Pakistan adds 5m people to its numbers every year, the populations of Europe and Japan are on the decline, with more and more people preferring not to marry. Those who marry, produce few children due to economic pressures.

Labour shortages in the West are not all of university graduates or highly skilled workers. Many jobs can be done by industrious though semi-literate people like ours, with some grooming and training. Developed countries have a shortage of electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters, chefs, cooks, waiters, school teachers, truck/ delivery drivers, paramedics, etc — all of them trades that can be taught in a year or two in institutions that can design courses in keeping with market needs. Such courses can be followed by the certifications required to make applicants eligible for jobs abroad.

Currently, over 1.2m Pakistanis live abroad. Many went abroad without the government’s help. Some went illegally. They send back $35bn a year which is the single reason the country is still afloat. Commodity exports of textiles, garments, rice, etc, with all the subsidies, gets us only $30bn.

We have done little to increase manpower export.

Egged on by sophisticated lobbying and advertisements, our governments have been proactive on behalf of our textile/ garment industry. Energy, including electricity and gas, for the textile industry, is available at discounted rates. Under the Export Finance Scheme, funds are provided at low interest rates, while under the Long Term Finance Facility, concessional loans are provided to modernise. Facilitation initiatives, such as duty drawback, tax refund, SEZs, are unending, but hardly considered by the beneficiaries.

Similar facilities such as cheap loans for export and modernising, duty refunds for raw material import for processing, etc, are given to promote rice exports. Funds are provided to establish and advertise brand establishment in foreign markets. In short, half the federal government machinery and significant political capital are geared towards increasing the export of commodities and products.

But what have we done to increase manpower export? There are numerous government organisations like the Overseas Employment Promoting Agency, the Overseas Employment Corporation, and the Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment, while some like the NAVTTC and TEVTA offer skill development. But their impact is zilch. One hardly hears of bilateral agreements with other countries to use our manpower, despite the wish to see batches of young men and women going abroad together under the sponsorship of such treaties. We only read about thousands of desperately poor people risking their lives.

Government facilitation and proactive initiatives in this sector are inadequate compared to those given to textile. Resultantly, our burgeoning population, a potential source of strength, remains a burden.

What should be done? In Pakistan, nothing moves unless the prime minister or chief minister makes it a political priority. Unlike the textile industry, where big money is involved leading to the formation of big lobbying groups wanting freebies from the government, no voice is raised for manpower export agents, who are formally registered with the government.

The government must realise that manpower export is the low-hanging fruit to be prioritised, not only for politics but for actual growth of our foreign exchange reserves. To take advantage of the 85m vacant jobs globally by 2030, if only 1m out of the 40m Pakistanis between 18 to 30 years were equipped with skills to work as plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, basic IT professionals, etc, we would add $12bn to our foreign exchange earnings, if each worker sent home only $1,000 per month.

If the government can’t deliver, it could have a scheme to encourage the private sector to set up skill development and grooming institutions charging discounted fees to make it feasible for poor aspirants. It could give a handsome subsidy for every person trained and sent abroad by such private institutions.

I dream of seeing the day when a group of suitably attired young people leave the country by air to work in previously arran­ged jobs with hope and pride in their eyes rather than returning home in body bags.

The writer is a former civil servant.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2025