Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: Pakistan remains a lower-middle-income country and could continue to be vulnerable to fluctuating energy prices, warns a Monday United Nations (UN) report.
The UN report also places Bangladesh and India among lower-middle-income countries despite their economic gains and urges South Asian countries to reduce their energy consumption. Nepal has also been placed in the same category, although Afghanistan has been listed among low-income countries.
United Nations warning
The UN labour agency warns that finding a decent and good-paid job could be more complicated in 2023 than in 2022, thanks to the continuing international economic downturn.
The report notes South Asia region has not been affected by the Ukraine war as few direct links between Ukraine and Russia. But it is “vulnerable to the higher international commodity prices that have resulted from the tussle.”
According to this UN report, South Asia “remains very vulnerable to natural disasters, for example, on the flood plains of Bangladesh and Pakistan.” Countries such as Pakistan “are increasingly held back by high energy subsidies, which weigh heavily on public finances and failing to reduce poverty effectively.”
The UN report argues that recent high energy prices have shown South Asia’s region’s vulnerability to energy imports and underlines “a clear need to become very less dependent on these imports.”
The United Nations labour agency predicts that the number of citizens unemployed around the globe could increase slightly to 208 million in 2023. This corresponds to a world unemployment rate of 5.8% or 16 million people, according to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) World Employment and Social Outlook Trends report. Today’s economic slowdown “means that several employees could have to accept lower-quality jobs, often at low pay, sometimes with insufficient hours”.
