Charter of the Economy Labor market conditions have deteriorated after 2017-18 due to the big decline in the GDP growth rate, even prior to COVID-19. The rise in unemployment rate has already been highlighted. The more recent trend in wages is highlighted in Table 27.4 for particular categories of workers on whom PBS collects data on wages on a weekly basis. Between June 2018 and January 2020, real wages of skilled workers have fallen significantly while that of unskilled workers have remained unchanged. There is need to focus on the impact on employment in the immediate aftermath of the first spread of COVID-19 in Pakistan after February 2020. The loss of employment has been severe with estimated layoffs of almost 5.2 million workers, thereby raising the unemployment rate further to over 15 percent by mid-2020. The expectation is that half these workers will return to jobs by the end of 2021. It is inevitable that real wages have fallen, leading thereby to a big increase in the incidence of poverty to over 37 percent as compared to 28 percent in 2017-18. Table 27.4: Growth in Wages Between June 2018 and January 2020(%) Nominal Wages Real Wages Carpenter 10.4-7.4 Mason 14.5-3.3 Plumber 11.8-6.0 Electrician 9.5-8.3 Laborer 17.9 0.1 Source: PBS, SPI 27.2. Growth Pattern of Employment There have been visible changes in the pattern of employment over the last decade or so on. The sectoral distribution of employment has changed significantly between 2009-10 and 2017-18 as shown in Table 27.5. The share of employment in agriculture is expected to decline as development proceeds. This is what has happened in Pakistan and the share of agriculture in total employment has declined from 45 percent to 39 percent. Table 27.5: Changes in the Sectoral Distribution of Employment Sector 2009-10 2013-14 Agriculture 45.0 43.5 Manufacturing 13.2 14.2 Construction 6.7 7.3 Wholesale and Retail Trade 16.3 14.6 Transport and Communications 5.2 5.5 Community, Social and Private Services 11.2 13.1 Others 2.4 1.8 TOTAL 100.0 100.0 Employment(Million) 51.9 56.5 Source: PBS, LFS (Share%) 2017-18 38.5 16.1 7.6 14.9 6.2 14.7 2.0 100.0 61.7 284