One has often referred to the point that the word ‘reforms’ in Pakistan needs to be carefully understood and sparingly used because quite often it is irresponsibly referred to by our economic managers, which causes confusion amongst stakeholders, because while the government could boast about ringing certain reform(s), in reality little stands changed. Also, given a rather unnecessary and often lengthy and incompetent bureaucratic involvement in the reform process, by the time the actual reform initiative becomes legislative, it has either lost its efficacy or is simply more of the same as before rather than bringing about any tangible change. It is in this context that labour or job market reforms should be discussed in depth since the exercise has wide implications when it comes to competitiveness and employment, both elements that today come out as the main concerns in the national economic scene. Politically populist decisions on minimum wage rates without taking into account the larger employment and skillset concepts often tend to be counterproductive, hurting workers and families via higher unemployment or disguised unemployment rates instead of helping them, something that has repeatedly been the bane in our governmental decision-making in recent times. Our leaders, trying to take refuge from their poor economic governance invariably leading to a mismanaged inflation, simply offer a short-term cum knee-jerk solution by way of announcing minimum wage levels that bear little correlation to the correction of the real underlying economic malaise. And it is keeping to this fundamental policy flaw that perhaps the most profound cum bold job market reforms undertaken by our neighbour and competitor India a couple of weeks back should be analysed in a threadbare manner to see whether or not they affect our competitiveness across the border to ensure that our policies remain aligned with future workforce........

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