The Labour Force Survey 2025 should have jolted the nation into a collective pause, because what it reveals is not a routine economic fluctuation but a structural collapse unfolding in real time. Yet Pakistan is being asked to digest a 7.1 percent unemployment rate as if it were just another bureaucratic figure tucked inside an official report.
This is not a harmless percentage— it is the highest joblessness the country has seen in twenty-one years. It reflects an economy staggering under its own contradictions: years of official claims about growth and reform, yet more people are out of work today than at any point since the early 2000s. This number should have triggered alarms across Islamabad, but instead we are met with spin, deflection, and an unsettling silence. Behind this silence lies human suffering on a scale we have not confronted honestly.
The facts are straightforward and brutal. The unemployed population has increased by 1.4 million in just four years. Youth joblessness is even more alarming, reaching double digits, and female unemployment remains persistently high. What makes this even worse is that while unemployment is rising, millions of Pakistanis are technically counted as “employed” despite being stuck in low-paying, precarious, informal work that offers no protection, no stability, and no future. Counting these individuals as “employed” is not only misleading; it is deceptive. It masks a crisis that is deepening beneath the surface and gives policymakers an excuse to ignore the collapse of the job market.
Pakistan urgently needs labour-intensive industrial expansion, SME support tied to job creation, public investment in infrastructure, and nationwide apprenticeships linked to real industries. Women must be brought into the workforce, not kept outside it. Social protection must act as an automatic stabiliser to prevent families from falling into poverty during crises. And above all, the political class must acknowledge that unemployment is not simply a number but a national emergency
The consequences of this negligence are everywhere. Rising unemployment is not just an economic problem; it is a social emergency. It pushes families into poverty, shrinks incomes, fuels desperation and forces people into survival behaviour that erodes the moral and social fabric of society. With rising inflation, high utility prices, stagnant wages, and shrinking formal opportunities, more households are now slipping below the poverty line. Parents are pulling children out of school to send them into informal labour. Women, already disadvantaged by cultural and structural barriers, are being pushed further into the margins. This is not development; it is regression.
What makes this crisis even more frightening is the rapid rise in psychological distress linked to unemployment. A recent study published in 2025 shows unemployed individuals in Pakistan suffering significantly higher rates of loneliness, emotional trauma, and financial stress. Mental-health experts have also warned that the country is on the verge of a psychological breakdown, with rising suicides, anxiety disorders, and drug dependency linked directly to economic strain and unemployment. Over 1,000 suicides were reported in just one recent year, and many of them were tied to joblessness and hopelessness. These are not numbers to glance over. This is the human cost of economic failure.
Drug abuse is also intensifying, especially among young people who feel cornered by shrinking opportunities and an uncertain future. When the system blocks legitimate avenues for progress, illicit ones emerge to fill the vacuum. Drugs, substances, and cheap narcotics become an escape for those who see no pathway out of poverty or unemployment. Families are disintegrating under the pressure, communities feel less safe, and crime takes root where the state retreats. This is not a coincidence; it is the predictable outcome of joblessness mixed with social neglect.
There is also a darker, more dangerous side to this crisis. High unemployment makes young people more vulnerable to exploitation. Criminal networks, human traffickers, smugglers, and extremist groups prey on economic desperation. When young men and women cannot find work, they become easy recruits for those offering quick cash, a sense of belonging, or simply a way to escape hunger. Even if not all unemployed youth fall into these traps, the structural risk is undeniable. A society where millions of young people have nothing to lose is a society sitting on a powder keg.
Meanwhile, the brain drain has reached catastrophic levels. In 2023 alone, emigration of highly skilled professionals surged by 119 percent. Doctors, engineers, IT specialists, teachers, and technicians— people Pakistan desperately needs— are leaving because they no longer see a future at home. More than 727,000 Pakistanis went abroad for work in 2024 under official programmes alone, and millions more have left over the past decade. This is not simply labour migration; it is a national self-amputation. Every educated professional who leaves represents a public loss— a lost teacher, lost surgeon, lost innovator, lost taxpayer. Remittances cannot replace human capital. When a country trains people for 20 years only to watch them leave in frustration, that is not just a policy failure; it is a national tragedy.
The regional disparities make matters worse. Provinces do not suffer evenly. Some areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and rural Punjab face crippling unemployment, fueling resentment and widening inequality. A society already fractured by ethnic, linguistic and political divides cannot afford an economic divide on top of it. Where unemployment is highest, social unrest brews fastest. Law and order problems grow. Families migrate internally in search of work, putting further strain on cities that are already overcrowded and under-resourced. The cycle deepens, and trust in institutions erodes.
If we step back, we see that all these symptoms— rising joblessness, mental-health crises, suicides, drug addiction, crime, brain drain, regional inequalities— are not isolated problems. They are interconnected signals of a deeper collapse. They reflect a model of governance that prioritizes macroeconomic headlines over human well-being. The tax-to-GDP ratio remains one of the lowest in the world, depriving the state of the resources needed for meaningful development. The elite continue to enjoy unjustified exemptions while ordinary citizens bear the tax burden. Industrial production remains weak, energy prices suffocate businesses, and climate disasters repeatedly destroy infrastructure and livelihoods. These structural cracks shape the unemployment crisis far more than any temporary economic downturn.
The state’s response, tragically, is still rooted in denial. Officials celebrate GDP upticks while ignoring that growth without jobs is hollow. They boast about stabilisation while families crumble under the pressure. They claim improvement while young graduates wander from office to office carrying CVs no one reads. Without a fundamental shift— a genuine jobs-first strategy— nothing will change. Pakistan urgently needs labour-intensive industrial expansion, SME support tied to job creation, public investment in infrastructure, and nationwide apprenticeships linked to real industries. Women must be brought into the workforce, not kept outside it. Social protection must act as an automatic stabiliser to prevent families from falling into poverty during crises. And above all, the political class must acknowledge that unemployment is not simply a number but a national emergency.
A generation is being lost in slow motion. The warning signs are flashing everywhere, yet the response remains muted. No country can survive, let alone progress, when millions of its people are jobless, desperate, and disillusioned. If Pakistan continues to treat unemployment as a technical statistic rather than a human catastrophe, the consequences will be felt not just in the economy but in the streets, the households, the neighbourhoods, and ultimately the national soul.
This is no longer an economic issue alone. It is a battle for dignity, stability, and the future of the country. And unless action is taken now, honest, urgent, and sweeping action, Pakistan will continue to slide deeper into a crisis that will take decades to undo — if it can be undone at all. Majid Burfat, is a former civil servant (CSP), political analyst, and columnist based in Karachi.
