As many as 829,549 emigrants were registered for overseas employment through the Bureau of Immigration and Overseas Employment (BE&OE) during 2022, according to information provided to the National Assembly on Wednesday by Parliamentary Secretary for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Syed Agha Rafiullah. The number of officially registered immigrants is now at its greatest level in the previous five years.
In answer to inquiries, he stated that, as of 2022, 12.45 million Pakistani employees had registered with BE&OE since 1971 in order to work overseas. Due to Covid limits, just 224,705 and 286,648 emigrants, respectively, were registered by BE&OE in 2020 and 2021, he noted, showing a downward trend. He said that BE&OE has taken several measures to explore and tap the international job markets for intending emigrants.
A diversification strategy was adopted to shift focus to new labor markets and the declaration of intent on migration and mobility has already been signed with Greece and the UK and soon would be signed with Germany. The parliamentary secretary stated that 12 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on exporting labor were now being discussed bilaterally with a number of nations, including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Portugal, Romania, and Uzbekistan. According to him, the foreign minister traveled to Portugal and Romania to look into fresh opportunities for regular labor migration.
Rafiullah claimed that the government had appointed 24 community welfare attaches in 16 different nations to investigate new employment opportunities for Pakistanis by conducting a labor market analysis (LMA) of the receiving nation so that qualified Pakistanis planning to emigrate could receive the necessary training in accordance with the host nation’s labor market requirements.
According to him, almost 9 million Pakistanis live and work in various nations throughout the world and contribute to the socioeconomic development of Pakistan.
According to the Parliamentary Secretary, there is no specific procedure for offering remedies for the protection of their properties. The Ministry took the initiative to propose a measure that would address their complaints and give abroad Pakistanis security for their property in order to remedy the problem.
Additionally, he stated that all regular employees of OPF schools and universities received the minimum payment set by the government. Additionally, he added, contract workers were given salaries in accordance with the terms and conditions of contractual employment laws and policies as well as with newspaper advertisements that were published at the time of hiring.
Nonetheless, he noted that some contract workers’ pay was still below the minimum pay set by the federal government. Additionally, he added, contractual workers who renewed their annual contracts were also entitled to up to a 10% annual raise.
