Kafka’s Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into an insect, caring more about his work than his transformed body. Samsa is afraid of being a burden on his family.
In his book Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka paints a sad picture of an ironic physical transformation leading to the invisibility of a person due to his economic redundancy. It resonates deeply with today’s Pakistani graduates. Their economically productive role being no less than that of Samsa tells the tales of the country’s sluggish economy coupled with an inefficiently expanded educational system.
More than 473,000 graduates are being produced annually, according to the report of the HEC. Pakistan has not been remarkable at planting them into the fields of decent work. These graduates then switch careers, settling in jobs requiring skills lesser than their qualifications. A recent report of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) records an over 31% educated youth unemployment rate.
Such reports do not merely tell the numbers; ironically, they enlist thousands of Samsas with potential and qualifications left at home to be metamorphosed. In simple words, Pakistan’s job industry finds it challenging to create jobs equally as universities enrol and pass out students annually. This leads to a degree bubble in which the number of graduate credentials exceeds the available employment opportunities.
The reasons behind such Pandora’s box range across economic, social, and institutional dimensions. The most significant reason is the slow economic growth. An economy expanding at a modest pace cannot succeed at generating employment fast enough to absorb a growing number of fresh graduates annually. On the other hand, the private sector remains underdeveloped, investment flows remain inconsistent, and energy and regulatory challenges continue to deter industries from scaling up.
Along with that, the concerning ‘misalignment with the current market trends and demands’ plays a major role in producing a labour force not entirely ready for markets, be they regional or international markets. Hence, this ironic misalignment or simple skills mismatch widens the scope of unemployment and underemployment and adds to the degree bubble in Pakistan.
Many universities persistently teach decades-old curricula, often disconnected from what industries need today. Hence, compromising on the training of students for a constantly evolving and growing market. As a matter of fact, the World Bank places Pakistan at 63rd out of 163 countries on the University-Industry Linkages Index, which speaks volumes about the gap between academic institutions and the productive economy.
Another layer of this crisis is the rapid and largely unplanned expansion of higher education. In the past couple of decades, the number of universities in Pakistan has grown significantly, while the industrial sector remained static. Such imbalanced growth flooded the economic sector with degrees of uneven quality and huge quantity. The buildup of such degrees has diluted the currency of qualification, making each individual credential worth less than the one before it.
Moreover, the neglect of vocational and technical education brings more darkness to the picture. Skilled trades and technical occupations go understaffed while the graduate labour market overflows. The stigma around vocational training, perceived as a lesser path compared to university education, prevents millions of young people from pursuing decent careers.
Meanwhile, the impacts of this degree bubble ripple across the full spectrum of Pakistan’s social, economic, political, and psychological landscape. The most visible consequence is the competition for a shrinking pool of formal employment, more commonly known as ‘sarkari naukri’. In this regard students are drawn to competitive exams such as CSS and PMS. Which are not only largely distant from their background fields of study. But also, a major career switch, which is hard to endure.
Students compete in massive numbers for only a few vacancies. This race of competitive exams then creates a Darwinian world of competition where only the fittest tend to survive.
On top of it, graduates with bachelor’s degrees find themselves competing for positions of standards lower than their qualifications. Leading to overqualified candidates. This underemployment is as corrosive as unemployment itself. It compresses wages, displaces less educated workers further down the economic ladder, and produces an economy where qualification inflation steadily erodes the returns on educational investment.
The political consequences are no less serious than the economic ones. Francis Fukuyama, in The Origins of Political Order, argues that societies which fail to productively absorb their educated populations breed deep crises of institutional trust. Educated young people who feel the gap between their qualifications and their prospects acutely are not passive in their frustration. Consequently, a massive trust deficit among the youth for the system becomes a bitter truth of today’s Pakistan.
Moreover, among the most irreversible consequences is the brain drain. The country loses a significant number of skilled graduates annually to the Gulf, Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Each departure represents not only a personal choice but also a national loss of human capital, the very resource upon which a knowledge-based economy must be built. According to reports, Pakistan has nearly 60% of the population under 30 years of age. However, the country lacks efficiency in utilising its vast human resource; thus, the youth end up becoming another country’s pathway to prosperity. Thus, another country’s economy flourishes on our resources, talent, and qualifications.
The psychological dimension of this crisis is perhaps its most quietly devastating aspect yet the most ignored one as well. Young Pakistanis who spent years under enormous familial and social pressure to obtain degrees emerge into a labour market that meets them with indifference or rejection. The link between graduate unemployment and clinical depression, anxiety, and eroded self-worth is well documented across developing economies. In Pakistan’s collectivist culture, where a young person’s economic contribution is inseparable from family honour and social standing, the inability to find meaningful work carries a psychological burden far heavier than statistics can capture.
Nonetheless, there is still room for hope, as Martin Luther said, ‘Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.’ Therefore, we must follow the ray of hope like a moth follows light. This golden ray suggests a few practical steps to pop this degree bubble of Pakistan. The first and most urgent step is to draft an efficient strategic industrial policy focusing on the manufacturing sector, agro-processing, and IT services, along with a genuinely enabling regulatory environment. The country does not need more universities; what it needs is more investment in the abovementioned sectors to create vacancies and build overall efficiency.
In addition to this, a transition of the country’s economy from the current state to a knowledge-based economy can be more fruitful than imagined. Such transformation promises long-term benefits like encouraging innovation, creating high-paying jobs, and increased development. Short-term measures can appear more practical and easy; however, major transformations with long-term benefits are always more prosperous. Therefore, it would not be wrong to state that moving towards a knowledge-based economy is a seed Pakistan should now plant.
Whereas curriculum reform must be followed with equal urgency. Universities need to redesign their programmes in consultation with industry, replacing rote theoretical instruction with practical, skills-orientated, and project-based learning. The Higher Education Commission must be empowered to hold institutions accountable not merely for enrolment numbers but for the employability of their graduates.
As well, industry-academic linkages must be transformed from aspiration into architecture. Structured internship frameworks and industry-funded research collaborations can begin to bridge the vast gap reflected in Pakistan’s poor standing on the University-Industry Linkages Index. Germany’s dual education system, which integrates classroom learning with real workplace training, offers a model that developing economies have successfully adapted. And it is high time Pakistan learns from it too.
On top of it, technology, particularly artificial intelligence and the broader digital economy, represents Pakistan’s most promising frontier. Pakistan already ranks among the world’s leading freelancing countries. Strategic investment in digital infrastructure, coding education from the secondary school level, and AI literacy programmes can convert an educated and connected youth population into a globally competitive workforce. With advanced AI and digitalisation, geography cannot imprison the youth in today’s digital world.
Finally, the psychological dimension must be treated as a policy concern, not an afterthought. Universities must institutionalise counselling, career guidance, and mental health support for students navigating the anxiety of an uncertain future. Graduate unemployment is not merely an economic challenge. It is a public health challenge as well, and it must be addressed as such.
To conclude, it is to say that Pakistan should invest its resources into the future of its youth, and the industry needs to be reformed to create more jobs. It’s a step to be taken without wasting much time. As the poet Robert Herrick wrote, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, for old time is still a-flying, and the same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying.” This verse is about urgency, about the cost of delay, and about what is lost when the moment passes unretrieved.
Pakistan’s educated youth are the rosebuds. They are blooming now, full of potential. Therefore, Pakistan needs to gather its rosebuds while it may. Meanwhile, the degree bubble is real; its costs are mounting, but the window to address it is fortunately still open. Therefore, we must avail the opportunities at present and take measures to pop the degree bubble in our country.