Egypt sees decline in unemployment among males, hike for females in Q4 2021: CAPMAS

Amr Kandil , Tuesday 15 Feb 2022

Unemployment rate has declined by 0.7 percent among males in Egypt but spiked by 2.5 percent among females at the fourth quarter of 2021 compared with the previous quarter, according to figures released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) on Tuesday.

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A file photo of Egyptian workers working in a textile factory (Photo:Reuters)

The number of unemployed citizens in Q4 2021 amounted to 2.200 million compared to 2.211 million in Q3 2021, including 1.28 million males and 920,000 females, CAPMAS said.

In an earlier report, the agency had reported 1.430 million unemployed males and 781,000 females in the third quarter of 2021 in Egypt, a country with a population of 102 million people.

Unemployment rate among males reached 5.2 percent of the total male workforce in Q4 2021, down from 5.9 percent in Q3 2021 and up from 5.1 percent in Q4 2020, CAPMAS said.

Among females, unemployment rose from 16.8 percent in Q4 2020 and 15.3 percent in Q3 2021 to 17.8 percent in Q4 2021, the agency added.

Slight decline in employment

Egypt has reported a decline in unemployment rate by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021 to reach 7.4 percent compared to 7.5 percent in Q3 2021, according to CAPMAS.

This represents a 0.2 percent rise in unemployment rate from the fourth quarter of 2020 but also a sharp drop compared to Q2 2020 when unemployment increased dramatically to 9.6 percent due to the coronavirus outbreak and partial lockdown measures.

While tens of millions of people have lost their jobs or got their working hours reduced due to the pandemic, Egypt has reported that 2.3 million citizens lost their jobs in Q4 of the fiscal year 2019/2020, according to government figures.

Over the past two years, Egypt has disbursed more than EGP 5.3 billion to irregular workers since the onset of the pandemic, the government said last February, to help workers affected by the repercussions of the pandemic.

Since the outbreak started in Egypt in February 2020, the country has reported a total of 457,081 cases and 23,409 related deaths until Monday.

Egypt has adopted an approach throughout the pandemic described by officials as “balanced” between sticking to coronavirus preventive measures and ensuring ongoing production.

Key sectors for employment

The number of work force reached 29.653 million in Q4 2021. This includes 13.234 million urban workers and 16.419 million rural workers, according to the statement.

Top sectors at which the employed citizens have worked are transportation and storage, then education, followed by wholesale and retail trade, then the health sector, and finally the construction sector.

Over the past few years, Egypt has witnessed the inauguration of many mega development projects as well as infrastructure projects that contributed to securing job opportunities and reducing unemployment, especially amid high rise in population annually.

Egypt managed to secure around a million job opportunities annually despite sharp population growth, Fakhri Al-Fekki, head of the parliament’s economic committee said in January.

The IMF said in October that Egypt needs from 700,000 to 800,000 job opportunities each year, which can be met by the private sector in case of upping productivity, enjoying access to new markets, and offering different types of finance.

 

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