Pakistan unemployment rate rises to 6.5%

The World of Statistics placed Pakistan at position 24 on its global list, as the unemployment rate in the country reached a new high of 6.5 percent, a Pakistan-based media house reported. According to World of Statistics, the highest unemployment in the world was recorded in Nigeria, where 33.3 percent of the labor force, exactly one third, was looking for work. A similar situation is also seen in South Africa, which ranks second with 32.9 percent unemployment.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has an unemployment rate of 29.28 percent. Others with comparatively higher rates include Iraq at 15.55 percent and Afghanistan at 13.3 percent. The rate in the UK is 3.8 percent and in the US 3.7 percent, according to the media report.

The unemployment rate in China and Canada was recorded at 5.2 percent. Bangladesh ranks 34th with an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, while Qatar has the lowest unemployment rate of 0.1 percent.

Meanwhile, another media house recently reported that Pakistan is recovering from one of its worst economic and political crises that has shocked the masses. This is despite the ongoing efforts of the coalition government to address the same.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance has warned of challenges stemming from uncertain internal and external economic environments, including rising inflation and external debt payments, due to lower foreign exchange inflows.

The ministry, in its monthly outlook bulletin, projected that inflation for the month of May will remain in the range of 34-36 percent.

“Pakistan’s economy experienced interim GDP growth of 0.29% in FY2022-23 due to many challenges emanating from the uncertain external and internal economic environment.”

“The challenges caused CPI inflation to remain on a higher trajectory despite monetary tightening mainly due to the depreciation of the rupee. External payments also remained affected due to lower foreign exchange inflows,” the ministry said, according to a media report.