Labor Force is the country’s most important asset as Pakistan is a labor abundant country, therefore structures and strategies are needed to be developed for providing them skill development opportunities as par with international standards.

These remarks were made by Yassar Sakhi Butt, President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), while addressing at the occasion of International Labor Day.

He said that Government should device strategies to initiate various skill development programs for labor force that would increase their efficiencies which would enhance their positions in the national and international labor market. He said that the supply of perfectly skilled labor to industries could trigger the industrial growth rate without doing heavy capital investment.

ICCI president said that ICCI has planned to collaborate with GIZ, which has been working in Pakistan on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development for promoting integrated approaches to improve vocational training and develop the labor market.

He was of the view that 73 percent of our local labor force was employed in the informal sectors as they have lower level of skill. Thus, Government should address skill development needs of workers and develop programs for their skill enhancement in line with international standards because types of skills demanded in the international job market are also changing rapidly, he maintained.

Yassar Sakhi Butt said that economic growth and boom in the construction sectors of Middle Eastern countries have generated massive demand for skilled and technical manpower.  He said that remittances could accelerate the growth momentum of our fragile economy by maintaining macroeconomic stability at a time when foreign investment was on steep decline. Therefore, Government should device strategies to initiate various skill development programs for people to work abroad which would ultimately increase the rate of remittances inflow, he added.

He further said that Pakistan’s vocational training institutes, which were working below their optimal capacity would have to rejuvenate and reenergize their efforts to bridge the gap in the demand and supply of technically skilled labor force.