PTI’s promise before elections to create 10 million jobs for youth is being viewed now as a mere rhetoric after one fiscal year has passed. Pakistan has seen a major influx of unemployment at the rate of 6.2% in last decade. Under the current economic crunch, the common citizen is confounded and so is the government. The faltering economic progress has coerced government to exercise all its energies and priorities to stabilize horrendous rupee devaluation. Simultaneously, Pakistan also encounters the brunt of rapid population expansion and that also adds insult to the injury. An expert prediction stated that Pakistan will become the fourth most populous country in the world by 2030. Today, the younger population is of greater size than an aging population and that makes the governments obligated to spend large chunk of social investment on education. This vividly shows how we have to manage and utilize our resources for next decades while creating jobs is yet another issue.
The developed countries have also reached to this conclusion that it has become extremely difficult to produce more government jobs. One reason is the expenditure of governments that has increased many folds in last few decades. Governments are spending large proportion of public taxes on infrastructure, development works, military strength and digitization. Second, government jobs also come up with pensions and other perks that cost much to governments. Third, if government itself is corrupt, the trickle-down effect makes other government institutions also corrupt.
In today’s world of constant change, the responsibility of providing jobs however can’t be solely put on governments alone. This puzzle needs to be simplified by dividing it into small pieces and then to solve it precisely. In this particular case, universities must play their momentous role in nurturing such graduates who could support their communities by creating jobs for them. Entrepreneurship largely offers a solution to unemployment. If governments facilitate in creating an atmosphere where ideas could be translated into reality, the rate of employment could be increased. According to new National Human Development Report launched by UNDP, 64% of the total population of Pakistan falls below the age of 30. Moreover, Pakistan is among the fastest growing IT and telecom industries of the world. With over 161 million mobile users and over 70 million internet users in Pakistan according to PTA, this pool can be brought into employment network with just a prudent policy.
In a world, where everyone may have an access to information and data, it is consequential for policy makers to devise policies that could encourage people to take responsibilities of others. The role of universities has exponentially increased in making highly skilled graduates with expertise in fluctuating market demands. The universities need to perform two things at earliest. First, to revise the curriculum and revamp it according to the modern needs of local and global market. Second, more real and practical solutions to the problems – that currently exist – to be designed. One good example of entrepreneurial revolution is of Superior University that has introduced the subject of entrepreneurship in every academic discipline. Ranging from techpreneurship to healthpreneurship and archipreneurship to mediapreneurship, Superior University aims to produce job creators, and not job seekers. This ensures that no matter which subject they study, they will have at least some knowledge of setting up their own company if they ever want to in the future. In its annual entrepreneurial expo, Superior University offers inter-universities business plan competitions, start-up exhibitions, trainings and workshops that create a bridge between local and international investors and start-ups. In its imminent SEE Pakistan – an entrepreneurial expo – the students will display and defend their prototypes before venture capitalists to acquire seed money for starting their businesses and create employment opportunities. Also, with its incubation center ID92, Superior University is introducing myriad of start-ups into the market with an aim to make Pakistan economically superior.
In past, governments had huge reliance on industries for the job creation while small and medium enterprises were ignored. Resultantly, the jobs disappeared with the clamp down of many industries. PTI needs to support and facilitate SME industry for job creation. The corporate sector has always created impediments for SME to prosper due to their personal stakes in government policies. SME, if be put in healthy competition, it has greater drive of innovation and development keeping the consumer preferences in mind. One resplendent example is tourism industry that is running on entrepreneurial projects and generating huge investments for country.
Entrepreneurship – in current economic fiasco – is a redeemer for government in fulfilling its promise of creating millions of jobs. There are thousands of women who had acquired university education but couldn’t afford to assume office jobs due to unsafe workplace reasons and thus don’t contribute to country’s economy. A careful statistics show that 22% of our women contribute to Pakistan’s labor force as compared to 84% men. With small businesses, skill based startups and freelancing projects, women can be bread winner of their families by working from their homes and also substantially contribute to country’s economy. This could be highly productive in remote and tribal areas where women participation to work force is meager.
At this fragile time, it is pertinent to remind government of its own promise of job creation and to also propose the tangible solutions. Developed countries like the US, Canada, Norway, and Japan have made most of their economic developments to date on the backs of their entrepreneurs. The future jobs will be creativity-driven, not knowledge or experience-driven. The time calls for independent thinkers to design economic policies.