Category: bussines

Job seekers scrolling LinkedIn and other boards are running into “ghost jobs”. These are roles that appear legitimate on the surface, but in reality may not exist, may have already been filled, or may never have been intended for hiring at all. So how do you avoid them? According to a 2025 study by resume-building service MyPerfectResume, in June 30% of job openings in the US never resulted in a hire, more than 2.2 million roles that did not materialise. That means there were a significant number of people who handed over their…

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KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed volatile trading on Tuesday as the benchmark KSE-100 index closed in the red because of late-session profit-taking that erased early gains. After touching the intra-day high of 162,820, the index failed to sustain the momentum and slipped to the low of 161,277 before settling at 161,692.49. By the closing bell, the market had recorded a decline of 291.59 points, or 0.18%. Market sentiment weakened towards midday as profit-booking intensified across index-heavy sectors such as oil & gas exploration, banking and power generation. KTrade…

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KARACHI: Gold prices in Pakistan rose sharply on Tuesday, tracking a largely steady trend in the international market, where softer-than-expected US retail sales strengthened expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in December. In global trade, spot gold inched down 0.2% to $4,130.85 per ounce by 09:36 am ET (1436 GMT), after earlier touching its highest level since November 14. The yellow metal had rallied nearly 2% on Monday as several Fed policymakers voiced support for a third rate reduction this year. In the domestic market, gold per tola climbed…

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ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on Monday approved the second phase of the Karachi water and sewerage services improvement project at a cost of $665 million, or Rs186 billion, to meet civic service needs in the country’s largest metropolitan city. Headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Ecnec also cleared, in principle, the revised project for acquisition of land for the construction of interchanges at the Karachi-Lahore motorway at a higher cost of Rs68.8 billion. Ecnec, the highest project-approving authority, approved the Karachi water and…

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KARACHI: Not many would dispute that a variety of the problems Pakistan faces today, and indeed has faced in the past, stem from the underwhelming performance of our bureaucracy. The question that comes to mind is: why does our bureaucracy underperform? To answer this, we need to appreciate that when people say “bureaucracy” they are conflating a system of governance, bureaucracy, with the people who work in it: bureaucrats. To understand what is going wrong, one has to look at these conflated elements separately. Britannica defines bureaucracy as a “specific…

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Recent market volatility has seen Bitcoin sink to a seven-month low, nearing the USD80,000 level below on Friday, as the cryptocurrency is caught up in a broader risk across financial markets, a trend noted by analysts. It has been observed that Bitcoin fell to USD80,553, marking a four-month low as cryptocurrencies led an extensive flight from riskier assets, prompted by investor worries over elevated valuations and uncertainty over US interest rate cuts. Cryptocurrencies are considered as a barometer of risk, and their slide highlights how sensitive the market has turned…

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KARACHI: Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) on Thursday dismissed claims that it was developing an offshore artificial island, clarifying that ongoing work is solely aimed at ensuring safe drilling operations in a technically challenging, tide-affected marshy region. A day earlier, Bloomberg reported that PPL is reclaiming land from the sea to create a launchpad to ramp up oil and gas exploration. The outlet quoted PPL’s General Manager Exploration and Core Business Development, Arshad Palekar, as saying that an artificial island would be created about 30 kilometres off the coast of Sindh, near Sujawal.…

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The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) on Pakistan says that entrenched graft and institutional weaknesses are still holding back the country’s economic progress, despite recent stabilisation under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The Fund has made publication of the assessment a prior condition for the IMF Executive Board to sign off on a $1.2 billion disbursement next month under the $7 billion programme. The executive summary states that the diagnostic exercise was requested by the government and launched in January 2025. An interdepartmental IMF team,…

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The value of bitcoin has fallen sharply since reaching record heights last month, briefly falling below $90,000 on Tuesday compared with above $126,000 at the start of October. Below AFP explains why investors are turning away from the volatile asset. Prior to the recent slump, bitcoin broke a series of record highs in the wake of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The US president came out strongly in favour of cryptocurrencies before his re-election and has continued to do so. Bitcoin first surpassed $100,000 in May before reaching its latest…

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The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Tuesday sanctioned key grants and reforms to bolster Pakistan’s defence and national security, the Finance Ministry confirmed. The committee’s session, chaired by Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, also okayed food security and petroleum sector operations, according to the press release issued by the ministry. The committee sanctioned a technical supplementary grant (TSG) of Rs100.3 million for the maintenance of defence equipment used by the Federal Civil Armed Forces and another Rs841.56 million for enhanced border management, internal security, and law and order. It also…

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