ISLAMABAD – Pakistan labour export to Saudi Arabia is facing a big setbackas the quota allocated to Pakistan has been drastically reduced in 2017.

Pakistani Labour plunged by 40 percent in 2017, according to official dataavailable from Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BOEOE).

Pakistan’s human resource exports plunged by over two-thirds to SaudiArabia in comparison to 2016, reported *The News.*

According to official figures available from BOEOE, over 839,353 Pakistaniworkers registered for employment abroad via the bureau in 2016 and thetotal number of person employed in 2017 till end-November stood at 465,0586.

A major fall was recorded in figures of Pakistani’s employed in SaudiArabia during 2017 which stood at 143,368 against 462,598 employed in 2016.

This is a worrying development, as human resource experts especially to theMiddle East constitute bulk of the foreign remittances which Pakistanreceives from abroad could greatly be impacted. Also, this would contributeto rise in unemployment ratio of Pakistan.

2017 has been on record the worst year for human resource exports in lastfew years. During 2012, the human resource exports stood at 638,587,followed by 622,714 in 2013, 752,466 in 2014, 946,571 in 2015 and 839,353in 2016.

The major damage to the country’s human resource export in 2017 is largelydue to a major slump in employment opportunities for Pakistani workers inSaudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has always offered the lion share of employment opportunitiesto Pakistani workforce, but the share had exhibited a rise from 2014 to2015 before declining in 2016 and 2017.