Painful adjustments.

Byline: Umair Javed

THAT the next three years (at least) are going to be tough for the country is a now a well-established fact. The burden of terrible macroeconomic policies in recent years and a multi-decade-long crisis of productivity is making its way for another painful period of structural-adjustment induced 'correction'.

As with such episodes from the recent past 1999-2001, 2008-2011 there are those who will remain somewhat insulated from the violence of a slowing economy. But for most who subsist outside of the narrow band of the top three to five per cent of earners in this country, the coming months will be varying degrees of oppressive.

Inevitably, much of the discussion so far props up the economy as an abstract entity that requires technocratic and dispassionate analysis. What is often missed out is the lived experience of those on the reAAceiving end of this abstraction. While even the IMF has been compelled to talk about increased social protection for the most vulnerable through existing mechanisms such as BISP, there is not much discussion on how other segments will experience (and adapt) to the coming crunch. One such demographic is young university graduates who are just about to enter, or have recently entered, the labour market.

In recent years, the subject of what young people in...