150,000 federal posts vacant after rightsizing – Pakistan

• Punjab has largest share of federal employment at 46pc, but below its 53pc population share
• KP’s share exceeds its population ratio with 28pc; Sindh holds 13.8pc, Balochistan 4.99pc of federal jobs

ISLAMABAD: The government has estimated that around 150,000 more posts were still vacant in the Centre and its autonomous bodies, after the recent abolition of an equal number of positions by the Shehbaz Sharif cabinet, as part of an IMF-driven “rightsizing” exercise.

According to the latest Annual Statistical Bulletin of Federal Government Emplo­yees for 2022-23, the federal government and its attached departments and autonomous bodies have a total sanctioned strength of more than 1.2 million (1,239,619), but its working strength stood at 947,610, leaving a vacancy of about 292,009 as of the fiscal year 2022-23.

Almost half of these positions — mostly in the federal government — were abolished recently while corporations and autonomous bodies remained untouched.

The bulletin put the number of employees working in the federal government at 590,585 against a sanctioned strength of 710,808, leaving a vacancy of about 120,223.

On the other hand, 357,025 employees were working in autonomous bodies against sanctioned posts of 528,811, which meant 171,786 positions were vacant. The vacancies are estimated to have gone up since FY23, given fewer recruitments in recent years.

The report revealed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had the highest ratio of overall federal jobs when compared to its population share, although Punjab has the largest share in the federal employment pool but significantly lower than its population share. Sindh and Balochistan also had lower representation in federal jobs than their population share.

The report showed KP-domiciled employees going beyond 28pc against its 17pc population share, while Punjab had a 46pc share in the federal government against its population share of 53pc.

In absolute numbers, Punjab had 272,773 employees at the centre compared to KP’s 167,025. This was mainly beca­use of about 120,000 employees from KP working in civil armed forces, accounting for 52pc of these forces. In addition, another 4.22pc of federal jobs (24,945) also belong to merged districts of KP, increasing its total representation to 32.5pc.

In comparison, Punjab’s share in civil armed forces stood at 26pc, followed by 5.36pc from Balochistan and 4.4pc from Sindh. Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan also hold 1.2pc and 1.3pc share in federal jobs, respectively.

The people from Sindh had 81,619 government jobs at the centre and Balochistan’s 29,479 positions. Sindh held about 13.8pc jobs at the centre against its 23pc national headcount, while Balochistan had 4.99pc positions against its 6.2pc population share.

However, the federal secretariat alone, having a total of 13,503 positions, was predominantly occupied by Punjab-domiciled employees at 66.6pc (9,000), followed by KP’s 14.2pc (1,911), Sindh’s 11.5pc (1,550) and Balochistan’s 2.8pc (375) employees.

Of the total sanctioned strength, 83pc posts are filled while 17pc were described as vacant. The basic scale-wise distribution of actual working strength showed that a small share of 4.6pc is occupied by the officers working in basic scales — Grades 17-22 — whereas 95.4pc is occupied by employees working in basic scales — Grades 1-16 — in various ministries, divisions and departments.

The federal government had a total female working strength of 30,190, including 6,715 in Grades 17-22.

Of the total strength of 590,585 of federal government employees, the percentage share of female employees stood at 5.11pc during 2022-23. The distribution of actual strength also shows that 22.2pc posts were occupied by the female officers in Grades 17-22 and the remaining share of 77.8pc went to BS 1-16 female employees.

Of the total working strength of employees, BS-5 had the maximum number of employees, with a share of 22.8pc.

The Basic Scale-wise analysis further showed that BS-20 had a decreasing trend of 1.3pc while BS-22, BS-21, BS-19, BS-18 and BS-17 showed an increasing trend of 11pc, 0.5pc, 4.1pc, 7.8pc and 2.5pc, respectively, in FY23 compared to actual working strength a year earlier.

Significant decreases have also been observed in the actual strength of Grades 16, 13, 12, 9 and 7 with a share of 3.5pc, 6.1pc, 19.6pc, 8.3pc, and 2.3pc, respectively.

On the other hand, an increasing trend was observed in the actual strength of Grades 15, 14, 11, 10, 8, 6, and 1-5 at about 9.97pc, 5.8pc, 0.5pc, 7.4pc, 26.3pc, 4.99pc, and 4.5pc, respectively.

The overall actual working strength against Grades 17-22 increased by 4pc, while in Grades 1-16, an increase of 2.58pc was observed in FY23.

Punjab (including Islamabad) has a 66.8pc share of female employment, followed by Sindh with a 15.4pc share (5.77pc in rural areas and 9.63pc in urban areas), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 9.99pc, Balochistan 3.67pc, whereas Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and ex-Fata have a share of 1.90pc, 1.14pc and 1.12pc, respectively, out of total posts.

Of the total 590,585 employees working in the federal government, 560,395 were male, thus employment share of males stood at 94.89pc while the share of female employees is 5.11pc, translating into a female-to-male employment ratio of almost 1:19.

Among the federal divisions, the Interior Division was the largest administrative unit due to the Civil Armed Forces, which came out to be 42.83pc (252,932) of the actual working strength.

The second-largest unit is the Defence Division with 22.77pc, while Railways, Communications and Revenue Division with 11.26pc, 5.04pc and 3.26pc rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively/ Other divisions have a cumulative share of 14.84pc.

In the actual strength of 27,011 officers working in BS 17-22, the percentage share of Grades 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 stood at 53.48pc, 29.32pc, 11.24pc, 4.16pc, 1.46pc and 0.34pc, respectively.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2025