ISLAMABAD: As Middle Eastern countries tighten the screws on human resource exports, Pakistan labour export to Saudi Arabia has plunged by 40 percent in 2017, according to official data available from Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BOEOE).
Pakistan’s human resource exports plunged by over two-thirds to Saudi Arabia in comparison to 2016, reported The News.
According to official figures available from BOEOE, over 839,353 Pakistani workers registered for employment abroad via the bureau in 2016 and the total number of person employed in 2017 till end-November stood at 465,0586.
A major fall was recorded in figures of Pakistani’s employed in Saudi Arabia during 2017 which stood at 143,368 against 462,598 employed in 2016.
This is a worrying development, as human resource experts especially to the Middle East constitute bulk of the foreign remittances which Pakistan receives from abroad could greatly be impacted. Also, this would contribute to rise in unemployment ratio of Pakistan.
2017 has been on record the worst year for human resource exports in last few years. During 2012, the human resource exports stood at 638,587, followed by 622,714 in 2013, 752,466 in 2014, 946,571 in 2015 and 839,353 in 2016.
The major damage to the country’s human resource export in 2017 is largely due to a major slump in employment opportunities for Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has always offered the lion share of employment opportunities to Pakistani workforce, but the share had exhibited a rise from 2014 to 2015 before declining in 2016 and 2017.
Export to other Arab nations remained abysmal during 2017, as only 9,989 Pakistani’s got employment in Qatar, 7,210 in Bahrain and Kuwait being the most unwelcoming with 741. UAE employed a total of 27,543 Pakistani workers during 2017.
