MNCs walking away | The Express Tribune

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 lean, import-heavy posture. Uber shut down nationwide, and even Careem suspended ride-hailing. Telenor sold its Pakistan unit to PTCL. TotalEnergies exited its downstream partnership. Different sectors, same direction of travel: from rooted investment to asset-light presence or the exit door.

In seminars and advising sessions, our students don’t ask macroeconomics; they ask life questions. “If the big names are leaving, where do we build? What should we study? Should we go abroad?” MNCs matter not just for salaries but for structure i.e. formal training, global standards, performance feedback and clear ladders of progression. Around them, local suppliers, agencies and SMEs learn and scale. When those anchors pull up stakes, an entire learning ecosystem drifts.

They’re downsizing for three linked reasons: macro instability (volatile currency, import/foreign exchange (FX) curbs, external-account stress); policy unpredictability (mid-stream tax/regulatory changes, opaque approvals, whipsaw energy pricing); and demand erosion (inflation-hit incomes, weaker volumes, rising fixed-cost pressure). While some call it global portfolio churn, the synchronised pullback of blue chips across sectors points to a local signal: Pakistan is being reclassified from an investment destination to a distribution market. Products still arrive, but factories and career ladders don’t, which is exactly what our graduates feel.

From the vantage point of classrooms and corridors, course correction means making the investment climate predictable and teachable: lock in a three-year, parliament-endorsed fiscal and energy-pricing plan and a published repatriation code with transparent reporting; enforce time-bound regulation with statutory deadlines, “yes-by-default” when clocks lapse and clear appeals; discipline customs and payments by prioritising essential inputs and ring-fencing dividend/profit outflows within pre-announced bands; upgrade human capital and supply chains through co-funded industry training, digital customs, bonded warehousing and de-bottlenecked ports; and pursue credible privatisation and competition so exiting assets look like opportunities, not liabilities.

These aren’t abstract, technocratic wishes. In fact they determine whether firms revive graduate programmes, fund labs and build local leadership, and whether top students see a future here equal to their ambitions. As educators we can mentor, improve curricula and foster resilience, but we can’t replace an ecosystem where global and local companies invest, train and innovate.

There’s still a window to recover investor confidence: stabilise rules, honour commitments and stop confusing population size with an investment case i.e. scale sells, but only stability brings capital. If policy resets are credible, exits can slow, idle assets can be repurposed, and fresh investors will return. Meanwhile, we can equip students with transferable skills and internships, but we can’t honestly promise the breadth of opportunities once created by a vibrant multinational presence – a shortfall rooted not in teaching, but in the broader environment that urgently needs fixing so graduates choose to build their futures in Pakistan.