By Abdul Daiyan
The problem of youth employment in Sindh has been termed as the problem of skills. The typical answer is to roll out training initiatives, increase vocational education, encourage digital skills and pledge to equip young people for the future of work.
But the latest labour-market figures pose a more challenging question. What happens once the training?
The current available Labour Force Survey conducted by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) 2024-25 reporting the data of Sindh youth unemployment 11 per cent. Interestingly, the youth employment-to-population ratio dropped from 40.4 per cent in 2020–21 to 39.5 per cent in 2024–25.
It is not just that young people don’t have the right skills. It is also whether the economy and public administration can put those skills into practice with real jobs.
A Certificate is not a job. A digital-skills course is not an industry. The public sector announcement is not a replacement for private sector investment, for the availability of labour markets and demand for labour.
However, the effectiveness of many skills programs is still largely measured in the number of people who have been trained. The more important question is what happened afterwards. How many found jobs? How many found work within the district in which they live? How many workers were taken on by employers whose needs were taken into account in designing programmes?
These questions are important because Sindh isn’t a single economy.
Karachi is the financial, technological, manufacturing, trade, logistics and services hub. The economic situation in Tharparkar is not the same. Likewise are those of Badin, Larkana, Sukkur, Hyderabad and Thatta. Local economies can be tied to agriculture, livestock, fishing, mining, the tourism industry, handicrafts and other small industries.
Consequently, employment opportunities for a youth in a rural area might be quite different from the one Karachi. Why prepare young people for an economy that they have no experience of?
This is where a provincial approach needs to be looked at. The Sindh government has implemented employability improvement programmes, however, there is little discussion of the outcomes of these programmes in the public discourse. How many of the participants got employed? How many programmes have been developed, in consultation with local employers? How much did the public spend to achieve each successful employment outcome?
If such information is not provided, skills development is likely to become a measure of government activity and not a measure of economic impact.
District-level development is already recognised as important by the provincial government. District development schemes are prepared and implemented under guidance of the commissioners and deputy commissioners within its Annual Development Programme 2026-27 which places a strong focus on data and measurable outcomes.
The employment could be more directly addressed by the same mechanism.
The discussion about administration comes into play here. Administrative restructuring must not be considered just in terms of boundaries or political representation. It should serve a utility rather than an end in itself, in that it should bring the decisionmaking nearer to those whose lives it affects.
District-level administrations may have more opportunities to determine the economic potential in their areas, coordinate technical institutes with employers, gather labour-market information and create skills training programs based on market demand.
For instance, an agricultural district may focus more on modernization of agriculture, food processing and agribusiness. Fisheries, marine services and tourism could be the focus of a coastal district. Technical education could be aligned to manufacturing, engineering and logistics in an industrial area.
Administrative reform is no panacea.
Adequate funding, institutional capacity, reliable data and accountability would be absent in creating new districts or administrative units otherwise creating more offices. Decentralisation is possible only if the responsibility is backed by the power and resources to achieve the results.
The gender gap accentuates the urgency of the issue. Labour statistics reveal that women in their youth are facing much more difficult access to the labour market than young men, especially in Sindh. Skills training will not overcome those barriers. Factors such as transportation, job availability, safety and social and cultural barriers affect the ability of a trained young woman to successfully enter the job market.
That’s why local knowledge is important.
Sindh must re-imagine its concept of a youth employment policy. More training courses are not the magic solution that the province needs. It requires a system that links education to skills, skills to the local industries and industries to jobs.
The Government needs to report on employment, not training numbers, that is. It needs more district-level planning and more local governments to be engaged in setting economic and skills priorities.
The young population of Sindh is a huge economic asset. That potential needs to translate into jobs, however, and that’s where classrooms and certificates aren’t enough.
It needs a government system that grasps the value each province brings, and the needs of each industry, as well as the location of available young workers who could possible find jobs in that industry.
Gaps in skills are apparent. The administrative divide cannot be ignored.
