Impact of Floods on Unemployment and Poverty Chapter 13: Impact of Floods on Unemployment and Poverty The combination of a generally low GDP growth rate even in normal conditions and the two catastrophic events of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019-20 and the disastrous floods in 2022-23 have led to mushroom growth in unemployed persons and the population below the poverty line in Pakistan. The objective of this chapter is to project the number of unemployed in Section 13.1. The second section presents an estimate of the population below the poverty line. The base year for the projections is 2018-19 and the projections are up to 2022-23. 13.1 Rise in Unemployment The labor force and employment estimates for Pakistan are taken from the Labor Force Survey of 2018-19 by the PBS. 1 The labor force in 2018-19 was reported at 68.75 million persons and the level of employment at 64.03 million. Accordingly, the number of unemployed was 4.72 million persons, implying an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent. This was somewhat above to the average over the last decade. The Macroeconomic Model has derived the relationship between the growth rate of real value-added and the rate of increase in employment in three major economic sectors, viz., agriculture, industry, and services as follows: Agriculture Industry Services 1% growth in real value-added leads to 0.60% growth in employment 0.54% growth in employment 0.72% growth in employment During the years when there is a decline in output, there is likely to be a proportionate fall in output. The projections of employment up to 2022-23 are based on the sectoral growth rates given in Table 13.1. 1 The LFS of 2020-21 overstates the growth in employment from 2017-18 onwards. 127