Employment Preferences and Length of Job Queues in Pakistan

It has long been recognised that public sector jobs are an attractive opportunity (because of job security, fringe benefits, and so on) in Pakistan's labour market. Since the early 1990s, Pakistan has been going through an economic restructuring plan, particularly in terms of privatisation. The aim of this paper is to examine the change in the phenomenon of ‘wait unemployment’ created due to preference for public sector jobs, using cross-section labour force surveys for 2001–02, 2003–04 and 2005–06. This hypothesis has been examined earlier only for 2001–02 (Hyder 2007). The evidence supported the view that unemployed people in Pakistan prefer public sector jobs, and due to this preference they remain unemployed for a particular period of time. However, the duration is uncompleted in nature. This study will provide an update on changing trends in job preferences among unemployed individuals based on two more recent nationwide Labour Force Surveys, for 2003–04 and 2005–06.