Salaries aren’t changing fast enough

PAKISTAN’S compensation landscape is evolving but remains poorly understood due to limited data, lack of structured studies, employers’ reluctance, and no regulatory push for transparency. This gap enables exploitation, misalignment of skills and jobs, and declining productivity. A closer look at Pakistan’s employment scene reveals some stark patterns. About 72 per cent of the workforce (85.18 million) is engaged in the informal economy — underpaid, insecure, and vulnerable to exploitation with little legal protection or bargaining power in a labour-surplus market. These workers are often the first to face layoffs and salary cuts during cost-cutting. Even among registered firms, there is reluctance to disclose wage bill data. Estimates suggest that wages account for less than 10pc of total operational costs of enterprises in Pakistan, roughly half of the global average, highlighting a structural undervaluation of workers.