National unemployment rate rises to 7.1%

The new Labour Force Survey has revealed that the unemployment rate in Pakistan rose to the highest level in 21 years at 7.1% in the last fiscal year, which Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said was the result of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and climate-induced disasters. The government on Tuesday unveiled the Labour Force Survey, which showed that the highest unemployment was in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), followed by Punjab. The lowest unemployment was in Sindh. The findings showed that the unemployment rate, which was 6.3% in 2021, went up to 7.1% during fiscal year 2024-25, said Dr Naeemuz Zafar, Chief Statistician of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), while sharing the main findings of the survey. Official records showed that 7.1% was the highest unemployment rate since 2003-04, when the ratio had been recorded at 7.7%. Since then, unemployment has remained in the range of 5.3% to 6.9%. In 2018-19, the unemployment rate was 6.9%.