Creating employment through Entrepreneurship: Mr. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI

Unemployment is one of the major driving forces behind social unrest, rising crime rate, mental health issues and even terrorist activities in Pakistan. Being an entrepreneur, I strongly believe that entrepreneurship spurs economic growth in several ways. The most obvious one is generating employment opportunities for skilled/unskilled and educated youth of the country. Entrepreneurs, at even the most basic scale, employ people, providing them with incomes that they can spend, initiating earn money programs, which fuel the movement of the national economy and also encourage people to do their own business and create more jobs.

The entrepreneurs are responsible for creating jobs with varying qualification requirements. For example, smaller entrepreneurs are more willing to hire employees with limited or no education, thus providing opportunities to people from all sections of society. Entrepreneurs also tend to hire locally, which reinforces the social fabric of their surrounding communities and is instrumental in promoting social change. Establishing and running a business encourages the people, while the resultant employment they create allows other people to support themselves and their households, thus reducing crime rates related to unemployment. It has proven with time that employees in entrepreneurial ventures get access to mentorship from the entrepreneur and hands-on work experience, both of which empower them with skills they can use to further their ambitions in life. Countries in the world with better entrepreneurial infrastructure such as readily available finance, conducive governmental policies, and healthy industrial infrastructure boast a better quality of life and prosperity.

Entrepreneurship is not only a solution to unemployment; it can be a road map to a better life. Generating employment on a micro-level is a key to national economics on a macro level. It is a universal truth that employed people will spend more, thus, giving a boost to the country’s gross domestic product. They will also contribute to national exchequer by paying taxes, and by doing so, contribute to a country’s national income, are more likely to save and invest to make larger asset purchases in the future. The people on a more stable financial footing are also more likely to send their children to educational institutions, setting off a chain of generational improvements in quality of life. As more and more people gain employment, the country’s middle class will grow, setting it on the path of transitioning from a developing country to a developed one.

The retail sector is the third largest contributor to Pakistan’s economy, contributing about 18-20% of the GDP and the employer of millions of people engaged by the industry. Retail, one of the principal sectors of entrepreneurship, is going through a transition phase in Pakistan and the world over. Most of the structured retailing in Pakistan has started recently and is engaged mainly in urban areas.

The retail sector likely touches you as a citizen every day, possibly multiple times a day. From prominent fashion brands to footwear and groceries and food and fuel, retail transactions are what an average individual goes through every day. Pakistan has around 2 million retailers, of which 0.8 million represent the FMCG modern trade and general trade channels, including kiryanas, general stores, medical stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, etc. and expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2028) of 16.58%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$300.80m by 2028. In Pakistan developing the retail sector as entrepreneurship can be a key driver of job creation and employment growth, and for good reason. Starting a business is not an easy task, but it can lead to significant benefits, both for the individual entrepreneur and the economy as a whole. By providing new products, services, and innovations to the market, entrepreneurs can stimulate economic growth and create new job opportunities. Entrepreneurship can create more and more jobs both directly and indirectly and can affect employment growth overall depending on the facilities provided by the government declaring the retail sector as an industry. In developing entrepreneurship in the country, it is necessary to promote technical education rather than conventional education. To extend entrepreneurship to all fields of study in vocational education it should be linked with practical training in specific fields of study with the objective of entrepreneurship, and provide support for students interested in starting up a business.

Trade bodies and business associations should take steps to promote partnerships between Technical Vocational Institutions and enterprises and motivate more business people to get involved in entrepreneurship education to promote economic diversification in Pakistan. By encouraging the establishment of businesses in different sectors, entrepreneurs reduce reliance on a single industry, creating a more balanced and resilient economy.