A Dual Migration Strategy for Pakistan

Pakistan stands at a defining crossroads. More than 13.5 million of its citizens have officially migrated to work in over 50 countries, making it one of the world’s largest exporters of human capital (Immigrant Times, 2026)[1]. This mass emigration generates a financial lifeline. During FY 2025, Pakistan received over $38 billion in remittance[2]. However, the country’s economy remains structurally fragile, heavily dependent on a single geographic corridor for these inflows. Over 54 percent of Pakistan’s total remittances originate from the Middle East, principally Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a concentration that has transformed from an asset into a systemic vulnerability as geopolitical instability rocks the Gulf region[3].

The paradox Pakistan faces is stark: it is simultaneously losing its most talented professionals while sending millions of low-skilled workers to a region now threatened by conflict. In 2024 alone, 727,381 workers registered for overseas employment, and the number of ‘highly skilled’ emigrants surged by 119 percent between 2022 and 2023[4]. Remittances, while vital, have become what one analyst called a “remittance mirage.”[5]. They have bought Pakistan time, not transformation. The nation urgently needs a dual migration strategy: one that incentivizes low-skilled labour export beyond the Gulf to diversify remittance sources, while simultaneously creating a compelling environment to attract top diaspora talent that can drive innovation, technology transfer, and sustainable export-led growth.

The numbers speak with uncomfortable clarity. 96 percent of officially registered Pakistani workers head to GCC countries[6]. In 2024, 62 percent went to Saudi Arabia alone, and 9 percent to the UAE. Saudi Arabia and the UAE together contribute over $11 billion annually in remittances, accounting for more than a third of Pakistan’s total[7]. With remittances touching 9–10 percent of GDP, a proportion far exceeding peers like Bangladesh (6 percent) and India (4 percent), Pakistan has engineered a concentration risk on a grand scale.

The ongoing geopolitical crisis in the Middle East has now transformed this vulnerability into a clear and present danger. The escalating tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran have shaken the Gulf’s long-standing reputation as a stable wealth hub. The Pakistan Institute of Development Economics[8] warns that if the conflict persists, around half a million new workers may not be able to migrate to the Middle East in 2026, while a similar number could be forced to return to Pakistan. Such a reversal would reduce remittance inflows by an estimated $3–4 billion annually. In 2025, Pakistan’s remittances exceeded $38 billion, roughly equal to exports. This is not an export-led recovery; it is a transfer-fueled one. The asymmetry between remittances and the productive export capacity of the country reveals a structural flaw that no amount of short-term stability can paper over.

Losing the Engine of Innovation

Compounding the Gulf dependency problem is an accelerating exodus of skilled and highly educated professionals. Pakistan’s Express Tribune labelled 2025 a defining year, calling the country a “Brain Drain Economy” — one that increasingly depends on exporting its workforce rather than retaining it to rebuild institutions. Between 2024 and 2025, official data recorded the departure of nearly 5,000 doctors, 11,000 engineers, and over 13,000 accountants.

The skill composition of Pakistani emigrants reveals a troubling trend. While 50 percent of the 727,381 workers who emigrated in 2024 were unskilled, the percentage of highly skilled individuals leaving has risen dramatically. These are engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and researchers who could otherwise anchor a domestic innovation ecosystem. In the long run, persistent brain drain weakens economic growth by reducing innovation, creating skill gaps, and undermining essential services, while also limiting mentorship for future talent. Although remittances offer financial benefits, they cannot replace the critical institutional role of skilled professionals.

The Dual Strategy

The solution is not to halt migration which is neither feasible nor desirable for a young, growing labour force but to manage it strategically. Research[9] proposes a four-part framework: brain train, brain gain, brain linkage, and brain circulation. Successful countries rarely rely on a single approach; instead, they combine these strategies over time. Two of Pakistan’s closest comparators India and China offer instructive models.

China’s Talent Circulation Model

China restructured its entire policy design to make itself a hub of technology and innovation, succeeding in reversing the brain drain. Since the 1980s, China has systematically attracted overseas returnee particularly scientists, academics, and entrepreneurs trained in the United. The Thousand Talents Program (TPP), launched in 2008, offered returning scholars generous financial packages, laboratory resources, and simultaneous appointments in Chinese and overseas institutions. The program proved so effective that it caused measurable damages  to U.S. research and development capacity[10].

Shenzhen, China’s technology hub, exemplifies this strategy in practice. The city developed a comprehensive talent policy that attracts overseas returnees, foreign talent, and domestic science and engineering graduates, while simultaneously upgrading higher education[11]. Evidence shows that technology transfer through diaspora networks directly and measurably increases a country’s exports in technology-intensive industries[12].

India’s Diaspora Linkage Model

India chose a different path: rather than demanding the physical return of its diaspora, it cultivated transnational linkages that channel knowledge, investment, and networks back to the homeland. Aof the Indian Institutes of Technology now function as transnational bridges connecting India to Silicon Valley and global innovation hubs. India today earns the highest remittances in the world $137 billion in 2024, not primarily from Gulf construction workers, but increasingly from a high-skilled diaspora in science, technology, engineering, finance, and healthcare working in the United States, the UK, and Australia[13].

The Indian government has further institutionalized this approach through the VAJRA (Visiting Advanced Joint Research) Faculty Scheme, which brings overseas Indian researchers and scientists to collaborate in domestic institutions, and the Resident Foreign Currency Account Scheme, which incentivizes returning professionals to manage foreign earnings in India.

Pakistan’s Path Forward: A Two-Track Policy Agenda

Track One: Diversifying Low-Skilled Labour Export

Pakistan’s demographic dividend with 26 percent aged 15–29, and the labour force expanding from 57 million in 2010 to over 83 million in 2024. The immediate imperative is geographic diversification away from the Gulf. Pakistan should actively pursue bilateral labour agreements with Europe, East Asia, and emerging markets in Africa and Central Asia. Government-funded vocational training programmes specifically tailored to the skill demands of these destination countries caregiving in Japan, manufacturing in Eastern Europe, hospitality in Southeast Asia can increase per-worker remittance earnings while reducing dependence on any single corridor.

Upgrading the skills of workers currently destined for Gulf employment would also yield dividends. A semi-skilled construction worker who obtains professional certification commands higher wages and remits more. The Overseas Employment Corporation and provincial TVET authorities should shift from a volume-based model to a value-based. Expanding bilateral welfare agreements to ensure worker protections and formal banking channels for remittances would further increase the share of transfers flowing through the formal system, boosting official reserves.

[1] Immigrant Times, (2026). Pakistani emigrants settle in Europe and the US, but the Gulf states only offer temporary stays.

[2] State Bank of Pakistan, 2026

[3] Insight Securities. (2026, March). Middle East tensions could threaten Pakistan’s crucial remittance inflows [Research report]. Arab News.

[4] Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment. (2024). Pakistani emigrants data 2022–2024. Government of Pakistan.

[5] Khizar, A. (2026, February 2). Pakistan’s remittance mirage [Opinion]. Business Recorder.

[6] Suleri, A. Q. (2026, April). Gulf instability and remittances’ risk [Opinion]. Dawn Business & Finance Weekly

[7] Express Tribune. (2026a, April 21). Falling remittances and rising energy prices: A double whammy.

[8] Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. (2026). Impact of Middle East conflict on overseas employment and workers’ remittances [Working paper].

[9] Shin, G.-W. (2025). The four talent giants: National strategies for human resource development across Japan, Australia, China, and India. Stanford University Press

[10] Zwetsloot, R. (2020). China’s approach to tech talent competition: Policies, results, and the developing global response. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) / Brookings Institution.

[11] Xie, Y. (2021). Talent migration in knowledge economy: The case of China’s Silicon Valley, Shenzhen. PMC / National Center for Biotechnology Information.

[12] Kerr, W. R. (2007, January 22). The immigrant technologist: Studying technology transfer with China. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

[13] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2025, November). World economic situation and prospects: November 2025 briefing, No. 196. UN DESA.