The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Thursday finally published the results for the 2020 – 2021 Labour Force Survey (LFS) which estimates the unemployment rate at 6.3%. However, only a week earlier, a Twitter post by the South Asia Index stated that Pakistan with a 4.3% unemployment rate “outranks other South Asian countries with lowest un-employment rates in the region.”
As the country was embroiled by political chaos, in the background the government attempted to continue to shine light on the successes of their term in power and PM Imran Khan did not miss the chance to highlight this post by retweeting it and adding that, ‘we handled the Covid pandemic – better than all the countries in South Asia.’
So then why the difference in rates reported by this unverifiable Twitter page and the LFS data? Sure the post could be gimmicky but that’s not the only thing to consider here.
The post lists down unemployment rates of seven countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Maldives) from the South Asian region among which Pakistan ranks the lowest at 4.3%. Note: Access to the full article is limited to paid subscribers only. If you are already a paid subscriber, please Login here Otherwise, you can choose to purchase a subscription package below for as low as Rs 275/month:
As the country was embroiled by political chaos, in the background the government attempted to continue to shine light on the successes of their term in power and PM Imran Khan did not miss the chance to highlight this post by retweeting it and adding that, ‘we handled the Covid pandemic – better than all the countries in South Asia.’
Please try to raise revenue by means other than subscription ,it simply not a good idea to put such restrictions on genuine economic information which is already in short supply for the public.Its simply not good for the Economic Health of the country! !☺
Talking about South Asia means South Asia not Asia