Islamabad: The Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OP&HRD) has proposed the establishment of a Labour Market Research Cell (LMRC) to strengthen evidence-based policymaking in labour migration and employment.
According to official documents, the LMRC is planned as a centralized, secure, and scalable IT-based labour market information and analytics platform. The proposed initiative carries an indicative budget of PKR 425 million for a two-year period from July 2026 to June 2028. The project will be sponsored by OP&HRD and implemented in coordination with its allied entities, including the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BE&OE), Overseas Employment Corporation (OEC), and Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF).
The LMRC is designed to function as an analytical and intelligence hub rather than an operational body. Its core objective is to consolidate fragmented labour market data from multiple institutions and transform it into coherent, policy-relevant insights to support employment planning and labour migration management.
Under the proposal, the platform will integrate data related to overseas employment, emigration, labour force indicators, return migration trends, remittances, household and labour force surveys, and information from national job-matching systems and international organizations. The analytical outputs are expected to include labour supply and demand trends, sector- and destination-specific skills requirements, wage patterns, skills gap assessments, and return and reintegration indicators.
These insights are intended to support bilateral labour agreements, skills development strategies, migrant protection policies, and parliamentary oversight. The ministry expects the initiative to improve coordination among relevant institutions, reduce data fragmentation, and strengthen the analytical basis for labour market reforms.
The proposed budget covers system design, IT infrastructure, data standardization, software, cybersecurity, and human resource requirements. Implementation is planned in phases, beginning with system design and data integration, followed by dashboard development and full-scale operations.
According to the proposal, improved data-driven planning could help align workforce training with international labour market demand and potentially increase skilled workforce exports, contributing additional foreign exchange inflows in the coming years.
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