Monday, February 17, 2014

EDUCATION:::Go ahead, take charge

Being proactive is Stephen Covey’s first habit in his bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and rightly so. Why does it make sense to start from there?

PAKISTAN:::Under-rated and under-reported

Gender stereotypes are common in the Pakistani media and continue to make it difficult for women to play an equal role in the country’s workforce

It is a fact that the media in Pakistan depicts the gender bias in our rigorously patriarchal society. The enormous influence the media has on constituting social change is also incontestable. However, it seems increasingly otiose to rely on the media to bring forth any change in this regard as long as Pakistan’s leading newspapers are still carrying jargon such as “lady” reporter. With the ratio of one in 20 female reporters in Pakistan, a fair and balanced gender representation in the media is absent. The significant misfortune is the lack of gender sensitive material currently being produced by the news media.

Bleak jobs outlook - 4.2 million more people will be unemployed in 2014

 
Weak global growth had a cascading effect on hiring activities across most regions in 2013, says the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Global Employment Trends 2014 report. Notwithstanding a 1.9 per cent rise in South Asia hiring, employment rates saw a decline in most parts of the world in 2013. Nevertheless, the increase in South Asia recruitment was sufficient to make up for the slippage, resulting in the global employment growth rate remaining unchanged at 1.4 per cent last year.
The ILO expects the global unemployment rate to increase from 6 per cent in 2013 to 6.1 per cent in 2014. It has also projected that the number of unemployed will rise by 4.2 million during the year. Despite signs of economic recovery in developed economies, the job market continues to be lacklustre. While the unemployment rate is expected to gradually decline, by 2018, it will still be around 8 per cent – much above pre-crisis levels.
Unemployment rates in non-EU countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States have been decreasing since 2009. But this witnessed a reversal in 2013, with a 0.2 percentage point increase in the number of people without jobs. It’s possible that job growth may remain muted in the future too. In the South-East Asian and Pacific region (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand), hiring activities grew by 1.6 per cent in 2013.