In our counseling rooms across departments at the University of Karachi, we keep hearing the same anxious question: "Will there be good jobs when we graduate?" For years we answered with cautious optimism. For instance, Pakistan's large market and young talent pool would keep multinationals investing, building teams and grooming leaders. Lately, that answer no longer feels honest. The pattern of exits and scale-downs is too sustained to ignore, and our students feel it first.

P&G's recent decision to wind down direct manufacturing and commercial operations in Pakistan (shifting to a third-party distribution model while Gillette delists) lands in our inboxes as canceled campus drives, thinner internship pipelines and fewer management trainee tracks. It is not an isolated move; it is part of a multi-year slide from "produce here" to "just distribute here."

The roll call is familiar. Shell sold its controlling stake after decades in local fuels retail. Sanofi divested its majority in its Pakistani arm. Pfizer has pared back to limited operations with a........

© The Express Tribune