Unemployment rate has reached record high of 15%: Shehbaz Sharif
Unemployment rate has reached record high of 15%: Shehbaz Sharif
LAHORE (Dunya News) - PML-N President Mian Shehbaz Sharif has said that the unemployment rate in Pakistan is at 15%, the highest ever in the country’s history. Despite imposing additional taxes every year, the PTI government is lagging behind in tax collections.
In a statement on Saturday, the PML-N president said that the public has rejected both the IMF budget and the government that introduced it. He added that when the PML-N left power in 2018, the volume of Pakistan’s economy was USD 313bn, which has shrunk to USD 296bn in the last three years under Imran Khan.
The Opposition Leader in the National Assembly said that the purchasing power of Pakistanis has fallen directly by 13%. In the PML-N era, the per capita income was USD 1560 in 2017-18, which has fallen to USD 1431 in 2020-21, a declined of more than 8%.
He said that for the first time in history, Pakistan’s GDP has decreased in dollar terms. When the PML-N government completed its term, there were 3.5 million unemployed in Pakistan but that number has now swelled to 8.5 million. The unemployment rate in the country is at an all time high of 15%, he added.
Shehbaz Sharif said that in three years under PTI, the income of unskilled workers has decreased by more than 18%. On the other hand, PML-N increased the growth rate from 2.8 to 5.8% in 5 years, brought down the inflation rate from 11.8% to 3.8% and doubled tax revenue from Rs 1946bn to Rs 3900bn.
