The total number of university graduates in Egypt in 2011 reached 343.5 thousand, which is 4.3 per cent over 2010, data from the country's official statistics body, CAPMAS, reveals on Tuesday.
The majority of graduates majored in Humanities at 79 per cent. Engineering and Medicine comprised some 15 per cent of the total graduates with around 26,000 alumni each.
This new batch of graduates will have a hard time finding employment in the current sluggish economic growth. One third of Egypt's total 3.4 million unemployed are university graduates. The unemployment rate reached 12.6 per cent of the work force, with a staggering 78 per cent of the unemployed under 29 years of age.
Around 97 per cent of the new graduates came from public universities, with the rest graduating from private universities, including the prestigious American and German universities.
Egypt's urban centres, including Cairo (the capital), Giza and Alexandria produced the highest number of graduates at 76,000, 41,000 and 30,000, respectively. Urban unemployment is significantly higher than that of the countryside at 16.2 per cent versus 9.8 per cent.
Forty six per cent of total graduates are male and 54 per cent are female. Unemployment among females is more prevalent at 24.1 per cent versus just 9.2 per cent among males.
Short link: