Labour force rose from ~71.8m to 83.1m between 2020-21 and 2024-25.
Source
Pakistan Economic Survey — https://finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_26/Complete_PES2025_26.pdf. Verified in source set / retroactive normalization pending.
What it proves
Growth must be employment-intensive.
What it does not prove: The labour force counts anyone working or actively seeking work, so it swells both when opportunity draws people in and when household distress forces them to look for income — the direction alone does not tell you which. Note also that the 11.3m rise falls well short of the roughly 19.8m rise in the working-age population, meaning participation lagged rather than deepened.
Memory hook: 83.1m → labour force grew 11.3m, barely half the working-age increase
Rebuts the claim: "A growing labour force proves the economy is generating opportunity" — it grew slower than the working-age population, so most entrants stayed outside it.