RAWALPINDI, June 16: Pakistan has currently about 2.68 million people unemployed up to June this year as compared to 3.10 million during last fiscal year, claims official statistics released on the occasion of federal budget for 2008-09.

This definition of unemployment is in consistent with the definitions of International Labour Organization (ILO). Unemployment is defined as all persons ten years of age and above who during the reference period were without work, currently available for work and seeking work.

Statistics reveal that the rising trend of unemployment has not only been arrested but it has also started declining since 2001-2002. The unemployment rate in rural areas is lower than that of the urban areas. Women unemployment rate declined in rural as well as urban areas while for men a modest decline was observed in both rural and urban areas.

The decline in female unemployment in both rural and urban areas has been attributed to two reasons which are: females were able to get job opportunities or they withdraw from the labour force mainly because of “discourage phenomenon”. It thus appears that women employment reduced primarily due to expansion in job opportunities for women. Micro-finance facilities focusing on women particularly in rural areas may be the major contributing factor in women unemployment rate.

The area of concern, however, remains the incidence of unemployment in the older age groups, where the rates are significantly high. Though, a number of facilities and social services are being extended for senior citizens, absence of an adequate institutional mechanism of social protection is greatly felt.

The age specific unemployment rate shows that unemployment rate starts declining from the age group of 15-19 years till the age group of 55-59 and again start rising from the age group of 60 plus. The highest unemployment rate is observed in the age group of 10- 14 i.e. 9.10 per cent mainly due to lack of employment opportunities available to young children.

In Pakistan, youth aged 15-24 are a growing segment of the labour market. According to the Labour Force Survey 2006-07, the share of youth in working age population is 28.69 per cent and in the labour force it is 28.09 per cent with 44.2 per cent labour force participation rate. The youth labour force participation rate has been on the rise over the years.

However, labour force participation rates for young women continues to be lower than that of young men, reflecting cultural barriers and the lack of opportunities for women to combine work and family duties. The gap between the participation of young men and women has decreased from 59.1 to 50.7 per cent since 1999-00, but remains far above the regional average gap in South Asia of 34.6 per cent in 2006.

The youth labour force participation declined by 1.7 percentage points in 2006-07 as compared with 2005-06. Of this, a 0.2 percentage point was observed in young women and 0.3 percentage point in young men. At the provincial level, man participation declined in all the four provinces, however, woman participation increased in Balochistan and Sindh. On the other hand it has declined more for the rural areas of the country as against the urban parts of Pakistan.