Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has already given a clear directive to all federal ministries that they should take specific and coordinated measures to open up jobs in line with the National Youth Employment Policy roadmap that was launched recently. The Prime Minister, during a meeting in Islamabad, called the creation of jobs for the skilled youth of the country based on merit and dignity as one of the major priorities of his government.
He stated that pioneering Pakistan’s first-ever structured youth employment framework reflects the government’s sincere commitment to human capital development. To ensure consistent momentum, the Prime Minister announced that a formal progress review meeting will take place every month to track execution timelines and remove bureaucratic delays.
Targeted Focus on Women, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
A central pillar of the newly assessed National Youth Employment Policy roadmap is the mitigation of regional and gender imbalances across the domestic job market. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif specifically instructed officials to integrate marginalized segments into mainstream economic growth :
Women Empowerment: Highly trained skills in specialized vocational training tracks to equip young women with full empowerment in the new emerging lucrative industries.
Regional Prioritization: Providing resource pools and job opportunities based on talent for the talented youth of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for provincial equity.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>PM <a href=”https://x.com/CMShehbaz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CMShehbaz</a> directs to ensure coordinated and effective measures to provide employment opportunities to youth <a href=”https://x.com/PakPMO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PakPMO</a> <a href=”https://x.com/hashtag/RadioPakistan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#RadioPakistan</a> <a href=”https://x.com/hashtag/news?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#news</a> <a href=”https://t.co/HVnhPciRUX”>https://t.co/HVnhPciRUX</a> <a href=”https://t.co/EVnLADzu3W”>pic.twitter.com/EVnLADzu3W</a></p>— Radio Pakistan (@RadioPakistan) <a href=”https://x.com/RadioPakistan/status/2089639399206314189?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 18, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.x.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Inter-Ministerial Cooperation: Development of a common approach for the effective cooperation among different ministries rather than operating in isolation.
Institutional Reforms in NAVTTC and SMEDA for Global Demand
To successfully bridge the gap between traditional education and actual industrial demands, the federal government has introduced deep-rooted institutional reforms within the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA). These interventions actively align Pakistan’s workforce with contemporary industrial demands both at home and abroad.
The meeting was briefed that NAVTTC has operationalized advanced training modules focused on international certifications and foreign language proficiencies. By training the workforce according to specific global market demands, the government is intentionally facilitating high-end, legal employment channels overseas, shifting away from sending low-skilled labor abroad.
Digital Youth Hub and Campus Career Counseling Centers
To democratize access to these newly created avenues, the government has unified job boards under a single tech infrastructure:
The Digital Youth Hub: A centralized online ecosystem enabling youth nationwide to access verified domestic and international job listings, training paths, and funding options from a single dashboard.
Youth Development Cells: Dedicated advisory nodes being set up across educational institutions to provide technical career counseling, guiding students toward skills that guarantee employment post-graduation.
Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, Rana Mashhood, gave an in-depth report on these activities. The session ended with an order from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to launch a nationwide awareness campaign to bring home to students the benefits of this landmark policy to them.
