ISLAMABAD: Pakistan sent around 600 professionals for jobs abroad in January, mostly to Gulf countries, as part of strategic employment agreements signed with global partners during the last three months, a top official said on Wednesday.
According to official data for January to August 2023, over 90 percent of 540,282 Pakistanis seeking job opportunities abroad found employment in the Gulf region.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have for decades been the top choices for Pakistani laborers, and are the first and second largest source of remittances to the South Asian country, respectively. Saudi Arabia remained the top source of remittance inflows to Pakistan in January, central bank data revealed this week showed.
“In a landmark moment for employment mobility, 595 Pakistani professionals have embarked on international careers mostly in Gulf countries following the successful negotiation of strategic employment agreements with global partners,” Jawad Sohrab Malik, special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis, told Arab News, saying the figures were from Feb. 5 to date.
“Out of these, 505 went to Gulf nations, including 473 to Saudi Arabia, 19 to Qatar, and 13 to Bahrain … These professionals went into different sectors including hospitality, service industry, construction, IT, engineering, medical and health care, manufacturing, agriculture, and fisheries.”
Pakistan had signed 50 international employment agreements since October 2023, through which approximately 12,000 interviews had been conducted and more professionals would be selected and departing abroad soon, the minister added.
The jobs had been arranged through the Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC), the government’s agency for exporting manpower, while private sector agencies, known as overseas employment promoters, handled dispatches separately also, Malik said
The figure of private overseas employment under new agreements is over 3,000 already,” the minister added. “We currently send over 800,000 manpower abroad annually and we can improve this figure to over 1.3 million yearly within 1-2 years.”
