Investing in human resource

Author: S A BHATTI

It is the irony of fact that the contribution in national income of the whole world of almost 12 Muslim countries of central and south Asia including Pakistan is hardly 0.9%, whereas share of USA is 23.2%, china 14% and even India 2.7%.

It markedly highlights the fact that Muslim economies in the region have become  prone to war proxy,  fatalism and chronic economic slump, and they could not invest and transform respective native human resource as worth.

Their focus of economic policies remained somewhere else. Conversely, USA, China and India prioritized Human resource transformation in their economic policies, when steam-engine was invented; it unleashed industrial revolution causing abundance of production of multiple goods and services for human welfare that was treated as mega development. Likewise, when type-writer was invented it was also considered as development in that era but conversely it is replaced by computer and beyond digital technology , so almost all discoveries as well inventions are now viewed as obsolete , therefore, it may be deduced that the norm development is too dynamic to be hedged. Conclusively, 100% development of any economy seems to be ideal philosophy which is devoid of logical foundation as development is directly proportional to output which could further be disseminated into 04 factors of production(land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship). Amongst all these factors of production, the labor is the factor which always remains in state of influx, and the most cogent determinant of output level or GDP in any economy.

Life expectancy in Japan is almost 86 years whereas in Nigeria and rural Sindh, it has dropped to 38 years. This confirms the fact that longevity of life is directly proportional to economic development

Economies of the contemporary world are often classified as UDCs (Under developed countries), DCs (developing countries) & DCs(Developed countries). parameters of assessing their bench- marking is based on living standard, quality of education , health, per capita income  and other economic indicators so  forth.

Japan, Korean and Chinese today s fabulous economies had been sincerely focusing on their human resource transformation since long, streamlined and innovated it as specialized one by repudiating the growing population as evil doctrine, and the tendency to deem human as most valuable resource which is to be groomed and valued. For instance, despite being almost 1.4 billion population, per capita income of china is $8833(2017) per annum whereas Pakistan has $1629(2017) per capita income.

Moreover, in current scenario South Korea s per capita income exceeds $ 30000 per annum, besides, it stands the most innovative economy in the world it drastically transformed its human resource productivity which was only $52 in 1953 when South Korea used to suffer from abject poverty.

Unfortunately,  no  any concrete and effective monetary, fiscal and   even structural  economic  policy of Pakistan government  at gross root level  yet have had  converted  our domestic people into valuable assets  as  immensely needed from current economic challenges and prospectus.

in fact, new technologies often drive higher productivity. Meanwhile, hazards of automation for losing jobs has been immensely suspected by the analysis of (input-output) of 12 developing economies  of Asia was conducted for 2005-2015 , when modern machine tools and ICT equipment spread into factories and offices in a big way. If output had remained the same, higher productivity would have brought a 66% decrease in employment, equal to 101 million jobs per annum. However, concurrently higher demand for goods and services more than offsets this with an associated 88% increase in employment, equal to 134 million jobs per annum. This will require coordinated action on skills development, labor regulation, social protection, and income redistribution-Asian Development Outlook (ADO 2018).

Life expectancy in Japan is almost 86 years, whereas Nigeria and rural Sindh, it has fallen to 38 years. This confirms the fact that longevity of life is directly proportional to economic growth.

Pakistani media has been actively playing its vital role, undoubtedly, to get our people rid of  superstitious and nonscientific outlook of life. But the role of government has been completely disappointing in this regard.

As income of major chunk of domestic people is hardly enough to fulfill their needs, their MPC marginal propensity to consume is higher so does multiplier expenditure is higher relatively to developed economies, hence, any wave of investment in economy would bring forth relatively larger benefits or economic goals with comparison to developed economies whose MPC as well Expenditure multiplier is relatively lower.

Moreover, as economist Solow has done great research on the economies of Germany and Japan which were erstwhile deemed as miracle, finally he in his growth developed model known by his name for which he was awarded Noble Prize in 1987, pleaded that productivity of per worker (y) is the square root of capital spent on per worker(k) which implies the higher capital spent on the least  developed human resource, there would be drastic and overnight economic growth. Economies that had invested a lot on human resources have been enjoying the sustainable transitional economic development since long. The same policy is also justifiable for Pakistan whose human resource lacks capital investment in wide quantum.

The author is a PhD scholar at Shah Abdul Latif University

Published in Daily Times, April 28th 2018.

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