Abdullah Gauhar , Geir T Tonstol
WARS are often measured in territory gained or lost, in strikes carried out and responses promised.
But long before those calculations settle, their consequences begin to surface elsewhere, in quieter, less visible ways. Today, as tensions escalate around Iran and ripple across the Middle East, those consequences are being felt not in corridors of power, but among the millions of migrant workers who keep the region running and whose livelihoods now hang in the balance.
Across the Gulf, millions of South Asian workers continue to go about their routines on construction sites, in airports, in hospitals, and in homes, even as the region around them grows more uncertain. For years, these workers have been the quiet engine behind the Gulf’s growth. In return, the wages they send back have sustained families, stabilized communities, and, in countries like Pakistan, quietly supported economic stability.
That arrangement has always depended on one thing: stability. Today, that stability can no longer be taken for granted. The immediate effects of the current escalation are uneven but visible. Airspace disruptions, pressure on energy infrastructure, and a general slowdown in economic activity are beginning to touch sectors where migrant workers are heavily concentrated. Tourism and aviation are often the first to feel the shock, while construction and services tend to follow. Even where jobs remain, the sense of certainty that underpins them begins to erode, and with it the predictability that workers rely on.
For many workers, this is not an abstract concern but a daily calculation. They remain in place because they have little choice, families depend on them, and opportunities elsewhere are limited. Yet the risks around them are no longer theoretical. In recent weeks, even critical infrastructure, the very sites where many migrants work, has come under strain, adding a layer of vulnerability to already precarious conditions.
If the conflict remains short, the disruption may be contained. But if it stretches into months, the economic consequences will deepen. Gulf economies, long seen as anchors of predictability, could begin to slow more sharply. When that happens, it is typically migrant workers who absorb the first shock, through reduced hours, delayed wages, or job losses. The effects do not remain confined to the region; they travel quickly across borders, carried through the remittances that millions of families depend on.
For Pakistan, these flows are not merely supplementary. Remittances support everyday household spending, including food, education, and healthcare, while also easing pressure on the country’s external account. A significant share originates in the Gulf, making the link between regional stability and domestic resilience particularly direct. Even modest disruptions can have outsized consequences. Estimates suggest that a short conflict could reduce remittance inflows by several percentage points, while a prolonged one could lead to far sharper declines, compounding the strain at a time when rising energy prices are already adding pressure.
Yet it is easy, in discussing these numbers, to lose sight of the people behind them. Each transfer reflects a decision made under constraint, to stay, to work, and to send money home despite uncertainty. In many cases, workers continue in conditions that are becoming steadily more difficult, weighing personal risk against the needs of those who rely on them. There is little room for pause, and fewer still for alternatives.
This moment is therefore not only about economics; it is about how the costs of instability are distributed. For countries like Pakistan, it also brings into focus a longer term question that has been easy to defer in more stable times: how sustainable is a model that relies so heavily on a single region for employment and income flows? Diversifying labour markets, investing in skills, and strengthening opportunities at home are not new ideas, but they take on renewed urgency when external shocks begin to materialize.
Conflicts have a way of expanding beyond their immediate geography, not always through direct involvement but through the systems they disrupt. Labour is one such system. Remittances are another. Both are now under strain. And as has often been the case, it is workers, far from home and with the least margin for uncertainty, who are left to navigate the consequences first.
—Geir T Tonstol, Director, Country Office for Pakistan, International Labour Organization and Abdullah Gauhar Malik, writer and Digital Lead at Pakistan Observer.
