New Delhi, Jan 31 The current regime in Pakistan is outdoing even those that preceded it in accumulating short-term debt, promoting conspicuous consumption, and engaging in resource grabs, a new report has said.
There is actually a bigger gap between how the ruling class projects its ‘successes’ and the actual conditions of working people than the inordinate focus on foreign remittances, says the report in Dawn.
As per figures, remittances reached a record high of $34 billion in 2024 -- equivalent to almost 10 per cent of GDP, making Pakistan’s one of the highest remittances-to-GDP rates in the world.
However, the reality is different.
“The vast majority of Pakistanis abroad are engaged in low-skilled occupations, often informal and precarious, especially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” says the report.
There are many Pakistanis abroad in the high-skilled labour bracket too who tend to invest in real estate, moving their money from one speculative investment to the next, “one of the reasons why so many plots in gated housing schemes are actually unoccupied,” the report revealed.
Labour is now Pakistan’s biggest export, above and beyond any single physical commodity and this is not about to change.
“There are more and more high-profile SIFC-fronted conferences with fancy claims about ‘mineral sector transformation’ and capital-intensive agriculture, but all of these revolve around the imperatives of capital, not labour,” the report lamented.
The opportunities for gainful employment are decreasing in parallel to the burgeoning supply of labour. This is why the number of people seeking to emigrate abroad is now touching one million a year, the report added.
“The real estate sector is amongst the biggest banes of our collective existence; not only does it create no jobs, it is sustained by land, water and forest grabs that are hastening environmental collapse,” said the report.
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